Traditional style flash design of a grey dagger wrapped in yellow ribbon banners with lettering, a red cross detail and a red drop of blood, shown as a drawing with no body placement.

Dagger and cross with lettered banners

Traditional · Mixed · Flash

A dagger with an ornate grey cross guard runs vertically down the centre of the design, with a small red cross on the hilt area. Yellow ribbon banners coil around the blade and carry lettering in black, with the blade shaded in grey and a single red drop at the tip. The drawing uses bold outlines and flat colour on a plain off-white background, with the banners sweeping outward at the top and bottom.

Traditional Dagger Cross Banner Ribbon Lettering Blood drop

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Tom, The gutting sheds have smelt worse since the Sanderson boat came in short of two men, and Mrs Leask has taken the choir off the hymn sheets and given us the banner tune instead, the one with the loud drum on the off beat. Reverend Pyle says it is no way to praise anyone, but he hummed it under his breath at the funeral, so I think he is coming round.

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You asked what the Tuesday practice is for now. It is for the slipway, mostly. The old cross on the mission door is the one Mr Cole painted years ago, the blade wound with yellow ribbon and the words across it in black capitals. Mam says he painted it for a fleet that had lost a boat in the big blow, and the lettering was meant to be read from the water. Nobody reads it from the water now, so we sing it instead. Ada Rennie pricked her thumb on the fish knife at the back of the shed last week and left a drop on the step, and that is the only blood anyone has spilt that I can say for certain was ours.

Last Thursday the lights came up the coast late, three of them, and the women stood on the wall with their shawls pulled tight. We started singing without deciding to. All you sinners stand up and sing. It carried out past the breakwater, thin and ragged, and one by one the lamps swung round and came in on the sound like moths to a window. Nobody paid any heed to the tune after that.

Come home for the Sunday and bring your voice. Mam keeps your place at the end of the front row, where the light from the high window falls, and I have not let anyone stand in it.

Your sister, Nell