Realistic colour back tattoo of a green-skinned mermaid bound in rope, with red octopus tentacles over the shoulder and arm, jellyfish, coral and passion flowers below.

Mermaid and octopus back piece

Realism · Back · Colour · Photo

A woman's bare back and arm show a large full-colour tattoo of a green-skinned mermaid bound with rope and chain, her head turned away from the viewer. Octopus tentacles in red and orange wrap over the shoulder and upper arm, while the lower part of the design shows a jellyfish, coral, underwater plants and two red passion flowers. Smooth shading and detailed highlights give the scene a painterly, realistic finish against the pale skin.

Realism Botanical Back Upper arm Mermaid Octopus Tentacle Jellyfish Coral Rope Chain Underwater Leaves

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The flood came up the drain in the second week of January, and by the time Dad had the pumps going the lower field was a grey sheet with fence posts standing out of it. I was supposed to be checking the eel traps along the ditch, which was a job for a grown man with waders, but Dad's were in the shed with a split seam, so I took my wellies and went anyway.

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I found her at first light, caught in the mouth of the old trap like a catch nobody wanted. She was green as bottle glass from her shoulders to her hips, and someone had wound rope round her in tight loops, then a length of chain that ran to the iron ring on the pump house wall. An octopus had come up with her, red and orange, its arms curled over one shoulder and down along her arm as if it had been trying to hold on. A jellyfish hung lit above them in the brown water. She kept her head turned away from me, looking at the dark where the drain ran out to the sea, and she didn't speak, but the water around her moved in a way the current could not account for.

Gran always said you untie what the sea hands you, so I fetched the hook knife from the shed and cut the rope one loop at a time. The chain needed Dad's key, which hung on a nail by the kitchen door, and I did not ask him for it. The octopus let go of her first. One cold arm lifted off my wrist and patted it twice, which I took for thanks.

When I came back at noon the trap was empty apart from a single passion flower, red as a boiled sweet with its petals still wet. Gran's plant on the wall has never flowered in February, and the chain was hanging open on its ring.

I keep the flower on the kitchen windowsill in a jam jar. Dad calls it a weed from the drain. Every winter when the water comes up, I check the ditch first, just in case she needs somebody to point her towards the sea.