Neo-traditional tattoo of two stacked owls framed by green leaves, acorns and red berries, placed on a limb.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Two owls with oak leaves on a leg

Neo-trad · Calf · Mixed · Photo

Two owls are stacked vertically, the upper one looking forward and the lower one turned slightly to the side, each with a dark round marking on its forehead. Bold outlines, dotted detailing around the faces and feathered wing shapes sit inside a border of green leaves, oak leaves, acorns and red berries. Green, yellow and brown tones sit alongside muted grey and beige feathers.

Neo-trad Botanical Calf Owl Leaves Acorn Berry Feather

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Ned, The owls came back to Carrow Keep the week the oaks began dropping their acorns, and I have been sitting on the stair below the tower trying to decide whether to tell you or let you find out yourself at Michaelmas. There are two of them, a mother and her near-grown daughter, roosting one above the other in the arrow slit where the masons never finished the sill. The top bird keeps watch over the gate like a steward counting carts. The younger one turns her head to look at me sideways, and there is a dark round mark on her brow, right where a second pair of eyes might be. Mrs Pell says it is a sign of luck. I say it is a sign she has been up too late.

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The rest of the place is going the way you warned me it would. Ivy has got into the chapel roof, the orchard wall fell in March, and the old oak at the bottom of the bailey has dropped more acorns than the pigs can manage. I filled my apron with them on Tuesday and left them on the windowsill of your old room, which I know is foolish, but the wood smells of you still and I could not bear to sweep it.

Last night the owls went out just after the bell for evening prayer. I watched them drop off the sill one after the other, the daughter a half-beat behind her mother, their wings opening wide enough to cover the whole breadth of the gate. For a moment they were the only thing moving against the dark leaves. I am leaving the shutter off its hook tonight. Come and see which of us they choose to keep.