Enlarged with AI from a smaller original
Stern owl with bare branches in ink
Black and grey · Flash
A detailed drawing of a horned owl's face looking directly at the viewer, with large round eyes, feathered brows and a hooked beak. Fine hatching and cross-hatching build up the feathers and shadows, and the owl's head is set against twisting bare branches drawn in crisp, thin lines. The image is entirely black and grey on a plain white background, with the composition weighted toward the lower left.
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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction
Sit still, and keep your hands in your lap where the owl can see them. Aye, that one, on the bare thorn above the kirk wall. He has been sitting there since before my mother was born, and he has never once blinked at a lie.
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The year the herring failed, a fisherman called Ruaraidh Mackie took his boat out past the Stacks with a debt in his pocket and a falsehood on his tongue. He told the minister he would be back for the Sunday. He told his wife the nets were mended. The owl watched him go down the shingle, and watched the sky turn the colour of wet slate, and said nothing, because an owl has no need to.
When the wind came round from the north and the boat did not return, the women climbed the hill with lanterns to the thorn where the bird sat. Mairi Mackie stood beneath it and asked for her husband back. The owl only turned its head the slow way they do and looked at her, and looked at her, until she understood what she had really been asking for and what she had already known.
Nobody on this island can tell that bird a lie. So when your mother says she is only popping to the shop, remember he is listening. And when you go down to the rocks tomorrow, you come home before dark, or he will know.
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