Black ink drawing of the Cancer zodiac symbol in a bold swirling linework design, shown as a tattoo design on paper rather than on skin.

Cancer zodiac symbol in swirl linework

Black and grey · Flash

A hand-drawn black ink design of the Cancer zodiac symbol, formed from two large curling swirls joined by sweeping tapered strokes. Thick, tapering lines are combined with small dots, giving a bold, flowing outline with no shading. The design is drawn in black on a plain pale background, centred in the frame.

Zodiac symbol Swirl Dot

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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

Sit closer, the lot of you, the gas lamps don't reach the back of the square and I'm not shouting over the buses. Now. The crab I'm telling you about wasn't the sort the fishmonger sells on a Friday. He lived under the old harbour steps, where the river gives up and turns to tide, and he held his two claws curled in front of him like a man holding his coat shut against the wind.

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Every night the lamplighter walked the wall, and every night the crab watched those lights come on one by one along the water. He wanted them, or rather the long bright road they laid across the mud. So he started walking. Sideways, because that is how crabs go, and sideways is no way to climb a sea wall. Each time the tide came in it pulled him back by the ankles, and each time he crawled out again he left a trail of small round prints across the stones, dot after dot, like someone tapping out a message nobody had learned to read.

The lamplighter noticed them one morning and took them for rain. Then the rain stopped and the prints stayed. He followed them to the bottom of the steps and found the crab wedged against a drain grate, his claws still curled, his legs worn right down at the joints. The lamplighter, who had no interest in the sea at all, carried him up the wall in a tin bucket and set him on the top rail just as the lamps came on.

The crab sat there until the tide had turned three times, looking at the road of light on the water. Then he walked home the way he'd come, sideways. The next night the lamplighter found fresh prints on the stones going the other direction, and he left the lamp on the bottom step burning a good while longer than he needed to.