Black and grey photograph of a bold black tribal dragon tattoo running down the side of a person's ribs.

Tribal dragon on the ribs

Ribs · Black and grey · Photo

A bold black tribal dragon runs vertically along the left side of the ribcage, with its head near the upper ribs and its tail tapering toward the waist. The solid black shapes and sharp, angular linework have a heavy, graphic look, with the ink standing out strongly against pale skin. The black and white photograph is set against a dark background, with a white fabric draped over the upper body and denim jeans at the bottom of the frame.

Ribs Dragon Tribal Woman

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Morag, the boat is finished at last, and Calum has painted the stern the way Father would have wanted, black as a winter sea. You'll laugh, but he has put the dragon back on her, the tribal one Grandfather cut into the old oak door of the net loft before the war. Calum traced it from the scrap of door we kept in the barn, the head rearing over the transom, the tail coming down the side in those hard, sharp curls, all solid black with no cross-hatching to soften it.

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I stood on the slip this morning and could not decide whether it looked fierce or only tired. Mrs Gillies came down with her bread and said a dragon is a poor thing to paint on a fishing boat, for it will frighten off the herring. Calum told her the herring have been frightened of nothing since the Dutch boats came, and she hit him with the loaf.

The thing I keep coming back to is the tail. Grandfather never finished it. He ran out of pitch the winter he took ill, and the last point stops short, just a blunt stub where the line should have gone on. Calum asked if he should complete it. I said no. Let the dragon go off the edge of the wood the way he left it. We'll sail her out on the morning tide, and whoever looks back from the water will see it still curling, unfinished, into the dark.

Love, Ishbel