Neo-traditional style tattoo on the outer thigh showing a mermaid silhouette against a red sunset, with a sea witch, fish, seashell, starfish and pearl chains in black and grey.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Mermaid sunset and sea creatures on a thigh

Traditional · Thigh · Mixed · Photo

A large tattoo wraps around the outer thigh, centred on a dark mermaid silhouette sitting before a red and orange sunset circle. Around it sit a scowling sea witch face, a grey fish, a shell, a starfish and strings of beads framed by ornate scrollwork. Bold black outlines and grey shading dominate, with warm red and yellow tones only in the sunset and a few highlights.

Traditional Neo-trad Thigh Mermaid Fish Seashell Starfish Pearl Sunset Scrollwork

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The string of pearls turned up in the soup tureen the Tuesday after the August gales, bumping against the ladle as if it wanted out. I fished it up with two fingers and held it to the window. Each bead was warm, which pearls should not be, and the pewter spoons on the sideboard had gone dull as pennies overnight.

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Nobody at the Sandpiper would own to it. Mr Greaves, who had kept the front room since the Coronation, said the pearls were his late wife's and I was to leave them be, and then he went out in his bathing costume and didn't come back for supper. Mrs Tanner in the attic swore the bell over the stairs had rung three times for no one. I took the beads down to the cove at low water, because that is where my grandmother said anything strange in our town got taken.

The sea was flat and the colour of pewter. Out past the rocks a woman sat on the wet shelf with her tail folded under her, combing weed from her hair with a starfish and scowling at the tide as though it owed her rent. She did not look up. I laid the pearls on the rock by her elbow and said I was sorry for whatever had been done, and that the spoons would be polished by Friday.

She laughed, a sound like a drain clearing, and slid into the water. When I climbed the steps the house was quiet and the bell was silent, and Mr Greaves stood on the front step with a towel round his neck, asking if there was any of that kipper left. I told him there was. There was always kipper. Somebody had to keep the books balanced, and it was never going to be the sea.