Two mirrored swallows in a traditional style, black with white outlines, shown against a plain white background.

Pair of traditional swallows

Traditional · Black and grey · Flash

Two mirrored swallows with wings spread, shown in profile against a plain white background. Each bird has a solid black fill with fine white outlines and short hatched strokes marking the feathers. The image is in black and white with no shading or colour, and the pair is centred with symmetrical spacing.

Traditional Swallow Bird Pair Wing

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Nell,

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The swallows came back to the chandlery roof the week after the Lydia Mae sailed, two of them, and they've been squabbling over the same gutter ever since. Mr Pryce says they'll nest there till September if nobody knocks the mud down. I've told him to leave it be. Somebody ought to keep one place on this street where things stay put.

I'm writing from the Fish Quay lodgings with the sea still in my ears. Sunday I walked down to Dunmore's booth on Humber Street, the one with the green awning, and had Joe Ackland put two birds on me in the same black ink you'd use for a ledger. He drew them on the stencil facing away from each other, then flipped the paper so they'd meet in the middle. He said pairs always go on mirrored, one looking out and one looking back, or the sea gets greedy. I didn't argue. I paid him in cigarettes and he didn't charge me for the second wing.

Mam will say it's a daft thing to spend money on. Tell her it was the cheapest insurance I've bought this year, and I've bought plenty.

Sail Thursday on the morning tide. Keep the back bedroom aired and tell Pryce to leave those swallows alone.

Your loving brother, Dennis