The swallow in the “old school” tattoos

Image:©photographiealltag/ Fotolia

The old school style for tattoos is a traditional tattooing style in Western Europe, some parts of Eastern Europe and America. Such old school tattoos were first made back in the end of IX and at the beginning of XX century.

As a rule, all the images in old school style are made with bright colors and every detail of the tattoo is in different color and the lines that separate the distinct details are thick.

The images that are most likely for the old school style are anchors, fire, flowers, angels, crosses, skulls, ribbons, heart images and birds. Most often, the representative of the birds is the swallow.

It is understandable that the image of the swallow is a standing committee in the old school tattoos. The people, who tattoo a swallow on their body, are usually connected to the sea in a way – they are sailors or they sail much because their profession demands it. Those people believed that such a tattoo will connect them with their family, friends and homeland. Often, in the old school tattoos could be seen names of family members, children, geographical places and great events.

Swallow are the first birds that welcomes the sailors in their homeland. Even when there is no view of land, if the swallow is on the fore-mast, it means that the shore is very close. The swallow symbolizes luck and happiness.

According to a tradition, young sailors are able to make their first tattoo of a swallow after they have sailed five thousand miles by sea. In case they want to make a second one, they have to sail five thousand miles more.

The most common places for a swallow tattoo are the chests and the area of the collar-bones. If there are two swallow tattoos on each collar-bone, the second one is considered to be a guarantee for a successful sailing.

In the old school tattoos, the swallow symbolizes hope, loyalty and expectations of successful changes.