Two side-by-side photos: a small fine line tattoo of three linked triangles on the ribs beside a matching silver pendant, and a small black swallow tattoo on the inner forearm.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Three triangles on the ribs and a swallow on the forearm

Fine line · Ribs · Black and grey · Photo

The left photo shows three small, outlined triangles of descending size, set side by side on the side of the torso beside a silver necklace with a similar triangle pendant. The right photo shows a small black swallow in flight on the forearm, drawn with fine outlines and minimal solid fill, against a white fluffy fabric and a grey knit sleeve. Both tattoos are in black ink on pale skin, with plain backgrounds that keep the focus on the marks.

Fine line Geometric Ribs Forearm Triangle Mountain Necklace Pendant Swallow Bird Ring

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

Maud Pellow ran the swing boats at Thornbury Green fair, and the autumn the frost came early she owed three silver pennies to Sam Corran, who sold toffee apples from a barrow and kept his accounts in the lining of his hat. He would not wait past the last night of the fair. So she sat on the step of her caravan with the lamp guttering and told the swallow nesting under the coconut shy what she needed.

Keep reading

The old folk on the green said a swallow knows the road over the three mountains beyond the salt marsh, the grey ones that shrink as you go, because the bird has flown them every year of its life and never once been asked to carry anything heavy. Maud tied the coins in a rag, knotted it to the swallow's leg with a thread from her own shawl, and let it go at dawn. It went low over the reeds, then up, and she lost it against the white sky.

The first mountain was tall and cold and the bird rested on its summit for a night. The second was shorter and had a well at its foot where a woman was drawing water and singing to herself. The third was no higher than a haystack. There the swallow found a man asleep under a hedge with his hat over his face, and it dropped the rag into his lap, the coins clinking, and sat on his boot until he woke.

Sam Corran came to the fair on the last night with his barrow and his hat, and he saw the swing boats going up and down against the stars with a swallow riding in the front one, and Maud laughing at him from the lever. He paid nothing and took nothing. He sat in the next boat with his hat in his lap, rising and falling, and the green grew small beneath them until it looked like a hill seen from very far away.