Traditional colour tattoo of a hand with crossed fingers, framed by red flowers and green leaves, on the upper arm.

Crossed fingers and flowers on upper arm

Traditional · Upper arm · Colour · Photo

A hand with the index and middle fingers crossed is the central subject, with three red five-petalled flowers with white centres and dark green leaves arranged beneath it. The linework is bold and black, and the hand is shaded in tan and brown with soft gradients. The palette is limited to red, green, yellow, tan and black, and the design fills the upper arm with the motif centred in the frame.

Traditional Upper arm Hand Flower Leaves

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Sit yourself down on that keg and stop fidgeting, boy, the galley's the only warm place aboard and you'll not bring the wet in with you. Aye, the Margery Ann. They'll tell you in the Anchor she went down off Lundy with all hands, but that's the tale for landsmen who want a shiver with their ale. I was her cook, so I'll give you the true of it, and mind the kettle while I talk.

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We'd a cargo of salt fish for Whitby, and the skipper swore on his mother's grave we'd make the herring fair. My Tom was waiting on the quay there, a lad of eleven with a new cap, and I'd promised him I'd be home for his birthday. I said it with my back to the door and two fingers crossed behind me, the way I'd done since I was a girl. Nobody can hold you to a promise made like that, my nan used to say. Then the calms came and stayed nine days, the flour went to weevils, and the last tin of peaches went to the mate.

On the tenth night the fire in the copper went out. I sat in the dark with my hands raw from scrubbing and made a deal with the sea. I'd give her the last of the rum, my blackcurrant jam and my good knife if she'd only blow one honest breath across the bows. I said it out loud, cheeky as you like, and kept my fingers crossed through the whole of it.

Come morning there was a wind off the land so sweet the mainsail sang, and we raised the Whitby cliffs by the dinner bell. Tom was on the quay in his new cap, waving like a windmill. The sea took the rum and the jam, and it took my knife too, which is a longer story, but it kept its word. So when you see a fellow with his fingers crossed, don't you call him a liar, boy. Ask him what he's bargaining with.