Colour traditional tattoo on a thigh of a Barcelos-style rooster with dotted patterns, a red rose with a cross through it and green leaves.

Barcelos rooster and rose on a thigh

Traditional · Thigh · Colour · Photo

A large colour tattoo of a Barcelos-style rooster with a red comb, yellow beak and dotted patterns in blue, red and yellow, with a chain of beads looping around its body. Below it sits a red rose with yellow and orange shading, a cross passing through the stem, and dark green leaves. Bold outlines and flat fills are used throughout, and the design wraps across the outer thigh.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The cockerel has taken to standing on the well wall as if the lane belongs to him, and this morning he crowed before the boats had even cleared the mole. Mãe says he knows the tide better than the harbour master, and I am inclined to believe her. Nobody has sold a sardine at the quay since Tuesday, so the women are mending nets on the steps and gossiping about the Ferreira boy who swears he saw a whale off the breakwater.

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Your rosary is still on the nail by the door. I have not moved it and I will not, whatever Padre Afonso says about sentiment. He came on Sunday asking after you, and I told him the sea keeps its own calendar and you will be home when the nets are full and not a day before.

Tía Lurdes told the old story again at supper, the one about the pilgrim from Galicia who was condemned at Barcelos for a theft he never committed. He begged the judge to look at the roast cockerel on the table, and the bird stood up on its platter and crowed. The judge was so startled he ran to the gallows to cut the man down, and the pilgrim, so the tale goes, carried a painted rooster on his cloak for the rest of his days. Mãe laughed and said the bird should be sent out to the fleet to wake the captains.

So I have decided the rooster will keep watch for you. Tell Captain Sousa the lamp is lit in the window and the rose is red on the step, and if you hear a crow out past the buoys at dawn, it is only me telling you to come home by Thursday.

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