Black fine line drawing of a mermaid with flowing hair and a curling tail on a plain white background, shown as a tattoo design.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Mermaid line drawing design

Fine line · Black and grey · Flash

A single figure of a mermaid with closed eyes, long wind-swept hair and outstretched arms, drawn as a continuous outline. The linework is smooth and even in weight, with curls in the hair and tail adding movement. The image is plain black ink on white with no shading or colour, and the figure fills the frame on a vertical composition.

Fine line Mermaid Hair Tail Outline Figure

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Take it to an artist as a reference. A good artist will make it yours rather than copy someone else's tattoo.

A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Sit nearer, the range has given up and I'll not shout over this wind. You'll have heard of Maud Pengelly and the ewes that went into the sea? No? Well. That was the winter the lane flooded to the gatepost and the tide came over the top field until it stood a stone's throw from the byre.

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Maud never tied her hair up. She said the wind liked something to pull at, and it did pull, streaming her curls out sideways like smoke off a chimney. On the third night she took a lamp down the cliff steps with her shawl over one arm, stood on the bottom stone with her arms held wide, the way you'd open a shawl to catch a child falling, and she sang a tune nobody had ever taught her. The water drew back from the field like a dog from a hand. Jory swore he saw it go.

She didn't come back up the steps. Her shawl was found on the rocks at low water, folded neat as a letter. In the morning every ewe was on the hill, the gate shut from the inside. Jory said he saw a tail flick off the end of the pier, curled like a fern unrolling, and nobody believed him, but he set a bowl of milk on the wall every night after and he never once let it freeze.

If you go down to the cove on a black morning you'll see the foam lying in curls along the sand, and there's always one that looks like it's trying to wave. Drink your tea now. Mind the stair, it's soft at the turn.