Realistic colour tattoo of a flying swallow with red throat and dark blue head on the outer ankle and lower leg.

Flying swallow on an ankle

Realism · Ankle · Colour · Photo

A swallow in flight is tattooed on the lower leg and ankle, wings spread wide and body angled across the skin. The feathers are rendered with fine shading and highlights, giving the wings and belly a soft, realistic dimension. Rusty red on the throat and wing tips contrasts with the grey-brown plumage and dark blue-black head, set against plain skin.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Maud, the Cutty Wren has been three weeks at anchor off Lowestoft and the damp gets into everything, the rope, the bread, my good boots. Mr Pellow swears the swallows know when a gale is coming, and this morning I watched a pair of them skim the harbour wall so low their wing tips nearly kissed the grey water. They came in from the land side, which is the wrong way for them, so I took it as a sign and told the mate we would sail on the turn of the tide regardless.

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You will want to hear about the market. Before we came down to the quay I walked up through the stalls in the rain, and there was a woman under a striped awning selling pickled herring and tiny brass bells for a penny each. She rang one for me without being asked, and the sound went up into the drizzle and seemed to hang there. I bought two. One is for you, and the other I have tied to the stay where the wind can have it.

I do not know when I shall be home. The owners want the hold full of coal by Michaelmas and the Baltic is no kinder than it was. But I am taking it on trust that the swallows will come back to the eaves at Cromer next spring, the way they always have, and that you will be sitting at the window waiting for them. Keep the bell by the kettle. If you hear it ring on a still day, that is only me walking up the lane in the rain, telling you the tide has turned.

Your loving husband, Edwin

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