Black and grey traditional flash design of a swallow perched on an ornate anchor wrapped in rope, with a ship's wheel hanging below.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Swallow perched on an anchor with ship's wheel

Traditional · Black and grey · Flash

A drawn tattoo design showing a swallow perched on the crossbar of an ornate anchor, with a coiled rope wrapped around the shank and a ship's wheel with rope hanging from the base. The linework is bold and the forms are shaded with soft grey tones and highlights, with radiating light lines behind the anchor. The design is shown in black and grey on a textured, parchment-coloured background, with no body part visible.

Traditional Swallow Bird Anchor Rope Ship's wheel

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

The swallow came over the breakwater at Gullhaven the morning the Constance Vey was due, and old Eli Marr, who had mended nets on that quay for forty winters, said it was the wrong month for it. Swallows came with the spring tides, not in the grey back end of November. Still, it perched on the crossbar of the chained anchor, cocked its head at the empty sea, and would not be moved.

Keep reading

Nell Tarrant came down the steps with her brother's coat over one arm and asked what the bird wanted. Eli said it wanted what they all wanted, a ship coming home. She said the Constance had gone round the Horn with salt and a boy called Tom who could not swim, and nobody had seen her since Michaelmas. The tide turned twice while they stood there, and the swallow never once looked away from the water.

At dusk a sail showed low and patched, and behind it a hull with its bow stove in, sculled home by two men at the oars. Nell was down the slipway before the keel touched shingle. Tom came up the ladder last, soaked and grinning, clutching a coil of rope as if it were his mother. He said the bird had flown ahead of the ship for three days, always just beyond the bowsprit. The swallow lifted from the anchor, circled the ship's wheel once, and was gone south before the lanterns were lit.

Nell kept the coat. Tom kept the rope. Every November after, someone on the quay swears they have seen a swallow where no swallow should be, and someone else says it is only a bird, and both of them glance at the anchor before they speak.