Traditional style tattoo of a mermaid with a green tail, framed by red roses and gold scrollwork on a person's chest and upper abdomen.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Mermaid and compass rose on a chest and torso

Traditional · Chest · Colour · Photo

A large mermaid sits on dark rocks within an ornate frame of red roses, dark green leaves and gold scrollwork, with a compass rose above her head. Behind her, a sailing ship and grey shaded clouds sit on a pale background, while the waves below use bold outlines and layered blues and greens. Strong colour dominates the central motif, and the composition fills the chest and upper abdomen.

Traditional Botanical Chest Mermaid Compass rose Rose Ship Wave Leaves Scrollwork Frame Cloud

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The roses had come up through the flagstones again, which Mother said was the sea's way of asking after us. I was on my knees with the shears when the postman's bicycle slid onto the gravel. I did not get up. The envelope he waved had Edwin's handwriting on it, and Edwin only wrote when a ship was due in.

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Inside was one sheet, torn from a logbook. He had passed the black rocks off Carrack Point again, the ones where a painted girl used to sit on the bow of the Halcyon Jane, combing her green hair while the crew swore at her. The Jane had gone to ruin in Bristol years ago, but Edwin wrote that he had dreamed of her every night since. He was coming home in March, and he wanted the gate painted.

I went down to the shed for the tin of gold size. Our father had hung that iron gate the year before he drowned, and he had insisted on a compass rose worked into the top bar so anyone coming up the path would know which way was north. The needle had rusted solid. I brushed the old gilt away with a wire brush, and the rust came off in little red flakes like the petals dropping from the roses by the wall.

By the time the light went I had painted the star points gold and left the centre bare, because Edwin would want to fill it himself. I put the kettle on and propped the letter against the teapot, facing the window, where the sea showed grey between the hedges. Let the wind find its own way up the path to him.