Black and grey drawing of a black bear standing upright on its hind legs, mouth open in a roar, on a white background.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Standing black bear roaring

Black and grey · Flash

A black bear stands upright on its hind legs, front paws held at its sides with claws showing, and its head turned forward with mouth wide open to reveal teeth. The body is rendered as a solid black silhouette with light grey highlights along the muzzle, teeth, chest fur and paw edges. The bear is centred on a plain white background with no other elements.

Bear Claw Teeth Animal

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Nobody at the Glenarra hall believed the bear was real until it stood up behind the bridesmaids. Aunt Morag dropped the tray of shortbread, and the fiddler stopped mid-reel with his bow still in the air, which was the first time in forty years I had seen Sandy Ross lost for a tune.

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I was the one who had to go to the door, being the oldest man there with knees that still worked. The bear filled the frame like a wardrobe standing on its hind legs, black as a peat stack, its jaw hung open so I could count every tooth it had. I knew the rumour that Jessie Mackay had kept a bear on the hill since the war, fed on honey and rejected loaves, and I had dismissed it as drink talking. Standing there, I understood the drink had been telling the truth.

Then the bride's grandmother, who is ninety-one and refuses to use a stick, walked straight past me and put both hands on its chest. It roared again. She laughed. "It's only saying congratulations, you great soft article," she told it, and it lowered itself onto all fours and went to the head table, where somebody had left a slice of the three-tier cake. It ate the lot off the plate without touching the cloth.

Nobody ever explained it to me properly, and I have stopped asking. What I remember is the bride laughing so hard she had to sit down, and the fiddler starting again, slower this time, as if the bear had been the guest of honour all along.