Two small skull tattoos on the hands, one wearing a red bow and one wearing a black top hat with a red band, shaded in black and grey with red accents.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Matching skull tattoos on two hands

Traditional · Hand · Mixed · Photo

Two small skull tattoos sit on the hands of two people. The upper skull, on the back of a hand, wears a red bow, and the lower skull, on a finger or the side of a hand, wears a grey top hat with a red band. Both skulls have bold outlines and grey shading, with red used for the bow and hat band, and the plain background is out of focus.

Traditional Hand Skull Bow Top hat Hand

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Hush now and lean in, for the ferry is late and the fog has come down thick over Inchfarrow. My grandmother swore this tale was true, and she never once told a lie before supper.

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Morag Tully kept a red bow in her hair for the ceilidh, and Dougal Reid came across from the mainland in a top hat he had bought off a drowned man's widow for two shillings. They met on the slipway in the rain, and by the time the fiddles started they had sworn to be a pair until the tide turned. Each had a small skull inked on the back of one hand to mark the promise, though nobody on the island could say who had thought of it first.

Come the autumn gales, the crossing boat had room for one passenger more. Dougal stepped aside and set his hat on Morag's head, and Morag tied her bow around his wrist, and Hamish the boatman, who had no patience for sentiment, counted them as one fare and rowed out into the grey. The fiddles played on the far shore for a week after, and nobody ever saw either of them on the mainland again.

Each spring, the old men say, two small skulls show in the lichen above the slipway, one wearing a bow and one a hat, both facing out to sea. Mind your step on those rocks, and don't whistle when the fog is down, for Hamish will be counting you.