Black and grey flash drawing of a mermaid sitting on rocks beneath a full moon, with a sailing ship, stars and roses, designed as a traditional style tattoo.

Mermaid on rocks with moon and ship

Traditional · Black and grey · Flash

A seated mermaid with long flowing hair faces a full moon, with a three-masted sailing ship on the sea to her right and stars and clouds above. She rests on rocks, and her scale-patterned tail hangs over the edge, with roses and a blank banner along the bottom. The linework is bold with soft shading on the moon, clouds and sea, all in black and grey on a sepia toned background.

Traditional Neo-trad Mermaid Moon Ship Star Rose Banner Cloud Rock Sea

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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 lamp's nearly out and so am I, but there's breath enough for this one. The Corvell Travelling Marvels had been dying for three winters when they pitched on the Saltmarsh headland, and the only thing still drawing a crowd was the mermaid. Her name was Esme Vardy. Each night at nine she sat on a painted rock in a tank of green water, her tail glittering with sequins sewn onto fish-skin by a seamstress who'd gone home years since, while the moon rose through the gap in the canvas roof.

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Mr Corvell wanted a new name painted across the front banner, something that would sell tickets in a bigger town, but he never found the paint he liked. The banner stayed blank through the summer. Esme kept her eyes on the back cloth, where a three-masted ship sailed out of the painted sea, and the strongman swore she'd once told him it was the very ship her father had left on, the night she was small enough to be carried down to the harbour wall. He laughed about it. She never did.

In the first gale of autumn the canvas tore, and rain came through the roof onto the empty benches. Corvell counted the takings in the dripping wagon and came out white-faced. The next morning the tank was drained and the rock was dry, and Esme was gone. Only the banner lay folded on the seat, still blank, with a single scale stuck to its edge like a wax seal.

They searched the sea wall for a week. Some said she'd sailed. I say a woman who'd spent her whole life watching a ship had no need to be carried aboard one. Mind the step on your way out, and mind the lamp, it's the last of the oil.