Black and grey fine line tattoo of a skeletal mermaid with long flowing hair and a fishtail, placed on the calf.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Skeletal mermaid with flowing hair on a calf

Fine line · Calf · Mixed · Photo

A mermaid is drawn with a visible skeleton, showing ribs, spine, pelvis and tail bones, while long wavy hair flows around the figure. The linework is fine and even, with stippled dotwork shading on the tail and pelvis, and faint dotted circles in red and teal sit behind the design. The ink is mostly black and grey, set against smooth skin on a pale wall.

Fine line Dotwork Calf Mermaid Skeleton Hair Tail Ribs Spine Dotted circle

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The fiddler at Gallow Strand had played the same reel for three nights, because the girl who had asked for it had not yet come back up the stairs. Nobody at the hall would say where she had gone. The floor was swept, the lamps were trimmed, and at high tide the sea came in under the boards the way it always did.

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Her name was Morwen, the landlord's daughter said, though nobody could say who had taught her to dance. She had come up from the harbour wet to the waist with her hair loose to her hips, and she had danced until the candles guttered, her bones showing pale through the lace of her gown whenever she turned into the light. Nobody minded the bones. The older men said they had seen worse on fishermen.

On the third night the fiddler, Tam Greer, took the stairs down to the cellar where the tide ran in. He found her sitting on the lowest step, combing out her hair with a comb made from a whale's rib. She said the reel had a wrong note in it, and that a dancer who could hear it would have to go under to put it right. Tam played it through once for her, slowly, and she smiled with her whole skull.

The hall was shut that winter and the harbour bell rang for no reason. Each spring, when the tide stands highest, rings of foam come round the pier in pairs, red at dusk and green before dawn. Tam Greer is old now and still hums the reel under his breath, and on the wet stone below the steps someone has been practising the turn.