Three newborn kittens rest on a forearm covered in traditional colour tattoos of a sailing ship, a red ribbon and flowers.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Kittens resting on a traditional forearm tattoo

Traditional · Forearm · Colour · Photo

Three newborn kittens with closed eyes lie across a forearm held in cupped hands. The arm carries bold black outlined traditional tattoos, including a sailing ship, a red ribbon, anchor-like shapes and green and red flowers. The bright reds, greens and blues of the tattoos contrast with the pale skin and the soft white fabric of the sleeve above.

Traditional Forearm Kitten Cat Ship Ribbon Flower Anchor

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The cat had made her nest in the flour locker behind the galley stove, and by the time Mrs Pruett found it there were three kittens with their eyes still stuck shut. 'Over the side before the bosun sees,' she said, already reaching for the lid of the slop bucket.

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Arthur Dunn, who had kept the foredeck for eleven winters, would not hear of it. He sat on the bench by the coal bin, turned his left arm palm up and told me to put them there. The ship inked above his wrist, the red ribbon, the fat-fluked anchor and the green and red flowers all lay beneath them like a bed. 'My mother made me promise I'd never drown anything I could carry,' he said. 'Ships have carried worse.'

The kittens smelled of warm milk and scorched bread. They rooted at the petals and settled in the crook where the anchor's shank ran through the blue water, and the galley clock ticked on while the bosun bellowed about the tide somewhere above us. Nobody moved. Mrs Pruett set down the bucket and stood with her hands in her apron.

We made port at Hull eight days later. The bosun found the three of them asleep on the bread board that morning and said nothing at all, which Arthur took as a blessing. When the ship was paid off, the kittens went ashore in a biscuit tin with a red ribbon tied round it, and Arthur carried them up the gangway like cargo he had signed for.