Three small solid black swallow silhouettes in fine line style on the inside of a wrist, with the hand raised above.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Three small swallows on a wrist

Fine line · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

Three small black swallows in flight are tattooed on the inner wrist, each shown in a simple solid silhouette with no interior detail. The birds are arranged in a loose diagonal, with the central bird largest and angled downward. The image is shot close up against a muted green background, with dark red nail polish and a dark sleeve visible.

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 third swallow was always the slow one, and that May it came over Varga Gap with one wing held close, as if carrying something it did not want to drop. Mira saw it first from the sheepfold, where she had been counting ewes since dawn because her father had gone down to the river with a fever and nobody else in the valley could be trusted to count them right.

Keep reading

Her grandmother used to say that three swallows flying together carried a question across the mountains, and kept carrying it until someone answered from the far side. Mira had been sending them over since the snow came. She tied a strip of red wool to the lead bird's leg, the one that always circled twice before choosing a rafter, and asked whether the miller's boy had reached the monastery at Sankt Orsolya before the frost shut the road. The birds went up and over the gap. For nine days nothing came back.

On the ninth morning the slow swallow returned alone. The red wool was gone, and in its place was a knot of grey thread. Mira unpicked it with her teeth. Inside was a scrap of paper in a cramped monk's hand that said only: He crossed before the snow. Tell the widow to come down.

She counted the ewes once more, got the number right, and left the gate open behind her.

More like this

Three small black bird silhouettes in flight, tattooed on the inner upper arm.
Three birds in flight on the inner arm
Black silhouette tattoo of three small birds in flight on the inner wrist, in a black and white photo of a hand raised near a knit hat.
Three small birds on a wrist
Close-up of two small solid black bird silhouettes in flight on the inner forearm near the wrist.
Two small birds on a wrist
Three tiny black silhouettes of birds in a line on the inner wrist, in a fine line style, shown in a soft-focus photograph.
Three small birds on a wrist
Five small black swallow silhouettes in a rising line on the inner forearm, with a hand resting against the chin in the background.
Five swallows in flight on a forearm
Black and white photo of a small fine line tattoo of three birds in flight on the inner wrist and forearm.
Three small birds on an inner wrist
Three small solid black bird silhouettes in flight in a row across the inner wrist, shown as a minimal black ink tattoo.
Three small birds in flight on the wrist
Two small solid black bird silhouettes tattooed on the inner wrist of a forearm, shown in a black and white photograph.
Two small birds on the wrist
Close-up of two arms with small black fine line tattoos of birds in flight, one trio on the forearm near the wrist and another on the upper arm.
Three small birds in flight on arms
Black and grey tattoo of three swallows in flight on the inner wrist, shown in a black and white photograph.
Three swallows on a wrist
Small blue silhouettes of birds in flight across a shoulder and collarbone, in a fine line style.
Flock of birds across a shoulder
Small black tattoo of four birds in flight running up the inner forearm near the wrist, in a photo with a blurred green background.
Four flying birds on a wrist

From the plentytattoo archive, uploaded by a user. Is this your work? Ask for credit or removal.