Black tribal-style design of a crouching winged gargoyle on a white background, shown as a flash drawing with no body placement.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Tribal winged gargoyle design

Black and grey · Flash

A solid black silhouette of a crouching, winged gargoyle-like creature with a horned head and a curled tail. The design uses bold tribal-style swirls and cut-out negative spaces across the wing and body. It is shown in black on white with no shading, grey tones or colour.

Wing Horn Tail

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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

Dear Tom, I have been trying to write this since Mrs Hollis sent round the reunion invitation, and every draft comes out sounding like a bank statement. So here it is plainly. The gargoyle is still on the chapel roof at Ashworth Grammar. I checked, driving past on Tuesday with the window down, and it was crouched exactly where we left it in 1994, one wing flared over the guttering as if it was about to drop on the bike sheds.

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You remember the night we dared each other up the lead flashing. You went first because you were the one who never backed down, and I stayed on the ladder counting windows. You reached the ledge, put your palm on its horned head, and said it had the face of a disappointed headmaster. We spent the whole walk home inventing its name. Your idea was Scrope. Mine was Bartholomew, which you said sounded like a sneeze.

What I never told you is that I went back alone the following spring. Some of the swirls on its wing had worn away where the stone had weathered, and the pale cut-out shapes left behind looked like someone had tried to read a message in them. I spent an afternoon with a torch and a notebook copying them down. They didn't spell anything. They just looked like a map of somewhere I had not been yet.

The reunion is on the 14th, in the sports hall, which still smells of the same floor polish. I'm bringing the notebook. If you come early, meet me by the bins at half six and we'll look up together, the way we used to, before anyone has the chance to tell us we're too old for it. Bring a torch. Bring your nerve. Love, Hannah.