Black and grey traditional flash drawing of an ornate dagger through a heart, with a Valentine banner, rays and a swallow.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Dagger, heart and swallow flash design

Traditional · Black and grey · Flash

A pencil or ink line drawing on paper showing a dagger passing through an ornate, scalloped heart, with a banner reading VALENTINE above and a swallow in flight to the right. Linework is clean and outlined with light shading and sunburst rays behind the heart and swallow. The drawing is in black and grey and is arranged as a loose design sheet with leaves filling the spaces around the main motifs.

Traditional Dagger Heart Banner Swallow Leaves Sunburst Ray

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Idris had the gold leaf down on the transom of the Valentine before the swallow came in off the harbour wall. It landed on the bowsprit, cocked its head at the tacky size, and thought better of it. Eunice Coyle had paid him in advance and been plain about it: the name must stand clear of the weather, the way her husband had stood clear of the bar at Scarrow the night he went out on her and did not come back.

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He worked the serifs with a squirrel-hair brush, one stroke a side, counting under his breath the way his father had taught him. The swallow came back every morning that week and sat on the mooring rope. Eunice brought him tea in a jam jar and asked whether birds knew the difference between a boat and a grave. He said he didn't think so. They only knew where the mud stayed warm.

On the Friday the wind backed south-west and the lifeboat came in early, its crew hauling their boots up the slipway. The Valentine stayed on her ropes. Eunice stood on the quay with her hands in her coat pockets and watched the swallow lift off, low over the water, and follow the channel out past the groyne as if it had a bearing to keep.

Idris finished the last letter at dusk and wiped his brush clean. Eunice came down the quay and looked at the name a long while. "Paint me a bird on the bow next spring," she said, "so she knows the way back." He said he would, then packed the tins and left the gold leaf in its book where the light could not reach it.