Black tribal-style design of a wolf's head with a rose above it and leaf and dot accents, shown on a white background.

Tribal wolf and rose design

Blackwork · Black and grey · Flash

The design shows a wolf's head in profile with a stylised eye and a small heart shape on the nose, with a rose at the top right and leaves curving down the right side. The linework is bold solid black with tapering tribal shapes, swirls and small dots filling the negative space. It is a black-only drawing on a plain white background, shown centred with no body part visible.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Nan, the wolf came back again last night, the grey one with the torn ear, and she sat on the wall below the lamp room the way she does before every gale. Dad says she's just a stray off the moor after rabbits. I don't think he believes that any more than I do.

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The rose is what she's after, I'm nearly sure of it. The old briar Mam planted against the cottage wall the year before she went has finally climbed over the sill, and the bloom this June is the darkest red I have ever seen, almost black in the evenings. Each night the wolf lies in the lee of it with her nose on her paws among the leaves, and when the wind comes off the sea she lifts her head and looks straight at the light, never at the water.

Last Tuesday the fog came in thick as wool and Tom Fenwick's boat was out past the Carrick reef. I climbed the stairs to trim the wick, and when I looked down from the gallery the wolf was standing at the foot of the tower with her ruff up, barking at the fog as if she could herd it home. I swear she was calling him in. Ten minutes later his engine came grinding round the point, and the wolf turned and trotted up the path without once looking back.

I've cut you a rose, the first from the wall, and it's wrapped in yesterday's Chronicle. Don't let Dad near the briar when you come, he'll say it's bad luck to take a cutting from it. Write soon, and tell Auntie the wolf sends her regards, which I know is daft.

Love, Ellie

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