Black and grey flash sheet drawing of a sailing ship on waves, two swallows, an anchor and a telescope, with the script phrase Between the Devil and the deep blue Sea beneath.

Sailing ship, swallows, anchor and telescope flash

Traditional · Black and grey · Flash

The sheet shows a three-masted sailing ship with billowing sails on stylised waves, two swallows in flight, an open anchor and a brass-style telescope. The linework is fine and even, with soft grey shading on the sails, hull and anchor. The motifs are arranged separately across the page, with the handwritten script phrase running along the bottom.

Traditional Lettering Sailing ship Wave Swallow Anchor Script Sea Sail

Find an artist for this

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

Dearest Ada, the swallows came back to the eaves of Mrs Pargeter's boarding house on Tuesday, the same two as last summer, or so I like to think, and I stood in the yard with a tea towel over my shoulder and felt I had been given an answer I had not asked for. You will laugh. I have been at the window with Father's brass telescope every morning since the Marguerite was sighted off the point, though she is not due in till the spring tide and the sea, as you know, does as it pleases.

Keep reading

Mr Okonedo in the front room says the ship is a fog-bank with ambitions. He pays his rent in advance, which is more than can be said for Captain Lusk's widow in number six, who has been promising us her silver since Easter. I will not write what the silver is worth to me. I mean only that the whole house has become a sort of harbour, everyone looking out and nobody quite arriving.

Last night Walter Pyke, who mends the boats on the slipway, asked me plainly to choose. I told him the sea is no more my devil than he is, and he laughed so hard he had to sit on the coal scuttle. The old saying, he said, is that a man stuck between the devil and the deep blue sea has only the choice of which way to drown. I said I had never been much of a swimmer.

So I have decided. I am keeping the telescope, and I am keeping the two swallows, and I am keeping the door on the latch. If the Marguerite comes in on the spring tide, you will find me on the quay with my hair undone. If she does not, you will find me here, adding up the rent and waiting for the birds to nest.

Your loving sister, Nell