Neo-traditional tattoo of a stag head with black antlers, orange flowers and green leaves on the upper thigh.

Stag head with flowers on a thigh

Neo-trad · Thigh · Colour · Photo

A stag's head in profile sits above an orange sunflower, a second orange bloom and green leaves, with a small dark mark near the base. The antlers are solid black with bold outlines, while the face uses soft brown and grey shading with fine hair detail. Warm orange, green and a red backdrop dominate the colour, and the design is centred on the outer thigh.

Neo-trad Traditional Thigh Stag Deer Antler Sunflower Flower Leaves

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Tom,

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The stag came down through the bottom orchard the week after the cider apples were picked, when the grass had gone the colour of old brass and nobody bothered with the gate any more. Dad would have had words about the Bramleys, but Dad is in the churchyard now, and I am the one who walks out with the bucket of windfalls and counts the split limbs. He stood at the edge of the sunflowers Mrs Pryce planted along the wall, not eating them, just looking at me over the fence as if I owed him an explanation.

The antlers were the thing. Twelve points, black as a wet hedge, and he carried them the way you carry bad news up a garden path. There was a dark shine under his left eye, and I told myself it was the flies. I went back to the house for the heel of the good loaf, and when I came out he was gone. The sunflower heads had been stripped and laid along the path, one beside the next, as neat as place settings, as though someone had been saying goodbye.

The marigolds by the back door are still going, so I picked a handful and left them on the stone bench where Dad used to sit. The leaves are turning at the edges now. Mrs Pryce says a stag in the orchard in August means a wedding, which is nonsense, but she has said it three times and I am starting to half believe her.

Come up at the weekend. Bring the boys. The Bramleys are heavy this year and I could do with a pair of hands that aren't mine. We can look for his prints by the stream. I haven't told anyone else about the bread.

Love, Ann