Black and grey drawing of a tribal-style cross with spiked, flame-like arms and a pointed base, shown on a white background.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Tribal cross design in black and grey

Black and grey · Flash

A black and grey drawing of an ornate cross built from tribal-style spiked arms and a pointed base. The linework is bold and the black areas are split with grey shading on one side, giving the design a two-tone look. The design is centred on a plain white background with no body part or other objects visible.

Cross Tribal Spike Ornament

Find an artist for this

Take it to an artist as a reference. A good artist will make it yours rather than copy someone else's tattoo.

A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The bells at St Oswin's had been silent since the flood, so when the cross came down off the chancel wall nobody thought to ring them. Mr Abel Quarrie lifted it onto the cart himself, grumbling that the iron was lighter than it had any right to be for something so spiked. Its arms were fringed with thorns like the tines of a broken comb, and the grey shading on its left flank made it look half in shadow even at noon.

Keep reading

His daughter Hester watched from the lych gate. She had seen the cross hang there every Sunday of her childhood, and she had never once seen it cast a shadow on the path, though the sun had been high enough. She said so. Abel told her the sun was a liar in Lent and to mind the mules.

They carried it up the hill road to the quarry chapel, where the new vicar wanted it set above the altar. Halfway up, the cart wheel caught a stone and the cross slid, and for a moment its long foot pointed straight at the sea below, where the fishing boats were limping home with empty nets. Hester saw that the lower arms had turned themselves a quarter inch, so the spikes now faced the village rather than the sky.

Abel did not mention it. He only took off his cap, set the cross upright in its new socket, and said the old words to it under his breath, the ones about keeping what was given. That night the boats came in full, every one of them, and the village spent a week wondering who the cross had been keeping, and from what.