Black and grey dotwork tattoo of three death's-head moths stacked down a forearm, framed by triangle outlines and crescent moons.

Three death's-head moths on a forearm

Dotwork · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

Three death's-head moths are stacked vertically down the forearm, each with skull markings on the thorax and detailed wing veining. They sit against fine line triangles, dotted guide lines and small crescent arcs. The moths are rendered in black and grey with stippled shading, and the symmetrical layout is set against a dark brick wall.

Dotwork Geometric Forearm Moth Skull Triangle Crescent moon Dot Geometric line

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

No, leave the lamp be, the moth won't harm you. Not that kind. Your grandfather called them death's-heads, on account of the skull painted on their backs, like some careful hand had dabbed a bone there with a fine brush. The week before the Marigold went out past the Hallow Skerry, three of them came in through the wheelhouse window and settled on the chart table, one above the other, neat as nails in a box.

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Skipper Rab Tulloch wouldn't have it. He took his dividers and drew a triangle on the chart, point up, then another point down inside it, and he dotted the lines where the tide would run, the way his own father had taught him. Beside them he scratched a thin paring of moon, the last of the month. He said it was only reckoning, nothing more. The moths stayed. Nobody knew who had let them in, least of all the boy who swept the deck.

They fished that week in weather no other skipper would look at. Three boats came home. The Marigold came home too, though one man short, and her hold was full of silver to the hatch. Rab sailed the same chart every season after, but he never again let anyone fold it.

So when you see them come round the harbour lamp, don't swat. Count them, that's all they want. Three, and they go back to the dark side of the water and leave you be.