Black and white photo of fingers with fine line tattoos spelling MEW, with a small cat face between the E and the W, on the hand.

MEW lettering with a cat on fingers

Lettering · Hand · Black and grey · Photo

Three letters, M, E and W, are tattooed one per finger, with a small cat face drawn in place of a letter between E and W. The linework is thin and even, in solid black ink. The image is a close, black and white photograph of the hand with a ring visible on the middle finger, and the letters run across the fingers.

Lettering Fine line Hand Lettering Letter Cat Cat face Finger

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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 stove, you lot, and mind the kettle, because this is the tale of the Mew, and it is older than the cut at Braunston. Back when the canal boats still went in strings, a boatwife called Nance Pellow worked the Oxford run with a tabby called Dorcas who could not abide the sound of a lock gate. Every time the paddles went up, Dorcas went under the bunk, and Nance swore she would sell her to the first farmer who wanted a mouser.

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One wet March the boat was ice-bound at Hillmorton and the tow-horse went lame, so Nance had to walk the towpath to fetch the chandler's boy. Her brother could not read, so before she left she chalked his instructions on the cabin boards, one letter to each board. M for mind the pump. E for empty the bilge. W for weather coming. In the gap between them she drew a cat's face, because Dorcas had sat on the chalk box and she was too fond of the creature to leave her out.

Her brother read it wrong, of course. He took the cat for a word of its own and decided the boat was calling for its keeper. He came out with the lantern and found Dorcas curled on the bow, dry as a biscuit, with the water rising round the hull where the pump had failed. Nance came back at dawn to a boat that had been bailed, a cat that had been fed, and a brother sitting on the step pretending he had never once been frightened.

Now, the chalk wore off years since, but the lads who work the locks still say the cat knows the weather before the rain does. And if you ever see one sleeping on a boat's door, leave the paddle alone.