Black fine line tattoo of a swallow in flight, with a thin line hanging down to a small anchor, on the side of a person's ribs.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Swallow and anchor on the ribs

Fine line · Ribs · Black and grey · Photo

The tattoo shows a swallow in flight with spread wings, joined by a thin vertical line to a small anchor below. The bird is mostly solid black with some linework in the wing feathers, while the line and anchor are fine and crisp. The close photograph shows the side of the torso with the anchor near the waistline, against a plain background.

Fine line Ribs Swallow Bird Anchor Line

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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

Ada had carried her brother's sea chest down the hill herself, so Tom could not say he had been held up. The Gull Mary was already loading coal at the far end of the quay, and the harbour smelled of tar and wet rope. Old Pritchard kept his needles in a biscuit tin behind the chandlery, and he was waiting under the lamp with the ink already warm.

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"Side or shoulder?" Pritchard asked, though he had already decided. Tom pulled his shirt up and sat on an upturned crate. The first stroke was the bird, wings flung wide, its tail forked like a pair of scissors. Pritchard worked slowly, wiping the skin with a rag between lines, and Ada watched the black take hold. When he came to the thin line hanging from the swallow's belly, Tom flinched and laughed.

"Why the string?" he said. "It's meant to be a sailor's bird, not a kite."

"Tether," said Pritchard. "A swallow finds its way back to the same eave every spring, whatever the weather. The anchor's only so she knows where you're moored." He set the small iron anchor at the end of the line and sat back on his heels. "That's you paid up. Don't go getting it touched by anyone who calls himself an artist."

The gangway was up before the church clock finished striking six. Ada stood at the edge of the quay with the cord from her apron pocket wound round two fingers. She had tied one end to Tom's coat button the night before. As the ship drew out, she let the cord run, metre after metre, until it reached the water. A real swallow dipped low under the gantry, then turned and followed the ship out past the breakwater.