Traditional style butterfly tattoo in black, red and green on the upper arm, with an ornate patterned wing design.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Ornate butterfly on an upper arm

Traditional · Upper arm · Mixed · Photo

A butterfly with outstretched wings is tattooed on the inner upper arm, shown beside a striped sleeve. The bold black outlines enclose dotted and patterned wing panels filled with red, coral and green, with a small dark body and antennae at the centre. The plain grey background keeps the focus on the tattoo.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Ruth,

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We came in through the Pentland Firth on Tuesday with the wind backing hard behind us and the nets stinking of mackerel, and the skipper swore the whole crossing that the sea had a grudge against the Mary Jane. You'll laugh, but on the second night a butterfly came aboard. I found it clinging to the wheelhouse glass at four in the morning, wings held wide as if it were waiting for someone to open a window. Dark as a Bible cover, with panels of red and coral, a green edge like the lichen on the harbour wall, and dots set in rows so neat you'd think a clerk had ruled them.

The skipper said it was bad luck, a thing that had no business at sea. Wee Davie wanted to flick it over the rail, and I told him to leave off, though I couldn't have said why. I set a biscuit tin lid under it, and it sat there through the whole gale, opening and closing its wings slow as breathing. When we hauled on Thursday the catch was thin, and the skipper went quiet in a way I didn't like, and I thought of you pinning Mum's brooch to the dresser and saying we'd all be fine.

It was gone from the glass by Friday morning. I looked for it on the tin lid, the rail, the coils of rope, and found nothing but a smear of red dust on my thumb. Then, as we rounded Dunnet Head, I saw it lift off the stern rope and go up into the grey, bright as a coal, and a gull went after it and missed by a yard.

We'll be tied up at Scrabster by teatime. Tell Mum I'm eating properly and tell her the butterfly was the only thing aboard that knew the way home.

Love, Tom

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