Red, orange and yellow flame-patterned phoenix design with wings spread wide and a long tail of flames, shown on a plain white background.

Flaming phoenix with spread wings

Colour · Flash

A phoenix rises with both wings outstretched and its head turned to the right, with a long, flowing tail of flame-like feathers trailing below. The bold black outlines are filled with mottled red, orange and yellow shading that gives the impression of fire. The design is centred on a plain white background with plenty of open space around it.

Phoenix Bird Wing Flame Fire Feather Tail

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The fat caught on the Thursday night, the way Mrs Ormerod always said it would if you let the stock simmer past its hour. I was alone in the galley of the Corran Lass with the hatch dogged shut against the swell, and the flame leapt from the pan to the rack of dried chillies above the range in one sheet of orange. I threw a damp cloth over it the way Nell had taught me, then stood there with my heart going like a tin drum.

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Nell was the ship's cook before me, forty years at the range in Leith and Hull, and she kept a hammered copper bird nailed above the spice drawer. She said it had come off a wreck in the Forth, though I never believed her. Her rule was simple: the fire will do what it wants, so you feed it only what it can take. I used to laugh at that. Looking at the blackened chillies, I wasn't laughing.

By morning the galley smelt of scorched pepper, and the captain came down to see the damage. He stood with his hands in his pockets, studying the soot climbing the bulkhead in a pattern like outspread wings. 'Could be worse,' he said. 'Could have been the whole ship.' I nodded. He asked whether I meant to keep cooking on that range, and I said yes, because Nell would have.

That evening I climbed the ladder to the bow and took the copper bird from its nail. Its tail was singed along one edge, the flame-feathers dulled by soot. I polished it on my apron until the metal showed red under the grime, then hung it back where the porthole light could find it. Every morning since, I light the range with one match and wait for the flame to settle into something I can cook with.