Watercolour-style tattoo of a fox in orange and black with a small yellow star above it, on the side of the body.

Watercolour fox on the side of the body

Ribs · Mixed · Photo

A fox sits upright in the centre of the design, with its head turned toward the viewer and its outline drawn in loose black lines. The body is built from orange wash with black shading along the flank and running drips below, while a small star in yellow and black sits at the upper left. The colour is mixed, with orange and yellow ink against black, and the soft, bleeding edges give the piece a painted watercolour look.

Ribs Fox Star Drip

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The keeper's wife at Scarrow Head had no patience for the fox that came up the cliff path every evening in the dry months. It sat by the lamp room door and watched the sea with its ears forward, as if it were counting ships. She said foxes were thieves and that was the end of it, but she set out a bowl of cold tea for it anyway, because a fox will not leave a bowl alone.

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One night in November the fog came in thick as wool and the lamp would not catch. The oil had gone to black skin in the reservoir and the wick hissed and died. Tom Pargeter, on watch, ran the stairs with a tin of paraffin. The fox came in through the open door, stood on the iron steps and looked up at the dark glass as though measuring it. Then it slipped out again and was gone an hour.

When the fog thinned near midnight, a star was found caught on the rocks below, a small yellow thing that had come down the wrong way and was spitting sparks into the wet. Tom went down with a rope. The fox was there before him, nosing the star out of a rock pool, its fur the colour of rust and cinders in the glow. Tom carried the star up inside his coat and set it in the lamp room, and the beam swung out over the water as though it had never failed.

Nobody in Scarrow Head would say the fox had carried the star. They said the oil had simply thickened and the wick had sulked. But every evening after that the bowl was set out, and the fox sat by the door with its black-tipped tail wrapped round its feet, while below the cliffs the sea ran orange where the light fell on the rocks.