Traditional tattoo sleeve on the upper arm showing a mermaid holding a bouquet, a red heart, pink roses, a skull and a blue rose, outlined in black.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Mermaid and heart sleeve on upper arm

Traditional · Upper arm · Mixed · Photo

A large sleeve tattoo covers the upper arm. A mermaid with long dark hair holds a bouquet and a ribbon, and her green tail curls over waves beneath a red heart framed by pink roses, a skull and a blue rose. The bold black outlines and flat areas of solid colour sit against a plain, softly lit background.

Traditional Upper arm Mermaid Heart Rose Skull Flower Bouquet Ribbon Wave Sun Sleeve

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Jack Rennie had been at sea eleven years before he saw a mermaid, and he saw her only because the cook threw the slops over the rail at dawn and the sun came up behind the swell like a coin dropping down a well. She sat on a wave a stone's throw off the bow, combing her black hair with a bone comb, a bunch of sea pinks tied at her wrist with a green ribbon. When she looked up she did not look surprised. "You're carrying a heart you don't need," she said. "Give it to me and the Mary Ann will make Swansea by Sunday."

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Jack had a red glass heart on a cord under his shirt, a brooch his mother had pressed on him the day he signed on, and he had never once been able to say why he kept it. He unpicked the cord with his teeth and held it out. The mermaid took it and dropped it into the water without looking, and the tail that flicked up beside her was the colour of bottle glass and as long as a longboat. The bosun swore the sea went flat for an hour after that, and the wind came round to the west, and the ship ran for home with every sail full.

They tied up at the Tawe on the Sunday. Nan Gwilym came down to the quay with her husband's hand on her arm and a baby on her hip, and she looked at Jack the way you look at a letter you have already answered. He waited to feel the old ache and it did not come. He felt only the sun on the back of his neck and the gulls over the coal tips. That night he found a jar of sea pinks on the windowsill of his lodging, tied with green ribbon, and no one had let them in.