Skin Deep

I don’t remember when my love of skin art, or tattooing, began. None of my immediate family had them, but somewhere along the line, I began to appreciate the artistry that goes into a good tattoo.

Of course, these days they are fashion accessories, but if anyone ever asks my opinion about getting one, I always say to go away for six months, and if you still want one after that, then go for it. Don’t be drunk or high when choosing one. And I personally don’t think it’s a good idea having them around the neck or wrists… but then, I like to be able to be discreet or respectful if necessary (and flashing around your new tattoo at your grandmother’s funeral might be something not really appreciated by your family).

Not that I have a lot myself. I only have two at the moment, but I’ve been feeling the niggling for a while to get a new one.

The first one I got was when I was 29 (I think). I had a rough idea of what I wanted and worked with a tattooist called Trish to make up a composite design. I went along to the Celtic Dragon in Newtown (where my husband at the time had had a couple done) and had this one done on the middle of my back, between my shoulder blades.
I reversed the idea that the sun and moon were masculine and feminine… after all, the sun is powerful and gives life. Sounds like a woman to me!



The funny thing is that, when I looked at this photo today (and I hadn’t really been able to look at it once it was on my back) it suddenly looked like me and my ex. I know this will sound particularly stupid, but hopefully not spiteful. Every time I’ve seen my ex over the last couple of years, he seems to have shrunk. Not only is he painfully thin these days, but he used to have a huge aura about him, and now he seems, well, a little pathetic. Looking at this tattoo, with a moon that reminded me of him, surviving only in the reflection of someone else (he needs an audience to be happy)… well, it gave me a bit of a shock!

The next one I got was when I was 31. My mother gave it to me for it for my birthday. And I got her one for hers (after always having wanted one) later that year.

I had given up basketball earlier that year, due to plantar fasciitis in both feet, and finally deciding my feet had had enough. I didn’t realise it at the time, but in hindsight, I really slumped into a big depression, and the weight gain from not being able to exercise the way I normally did, did nothing to help. So I decided that I needed something to help lift me out of myself, to give me a better body image, or something. I dunno. I just knew I wanted another one.

Anyway, I went back to the Celtic Dragon, this time planning on getting, yes, a Celtic dragon. I wanted something strong, powerful, and seeing as my surname betrays my Irish heritage, it seemed apt. Once I got there, I looked around the flash artwork on the walls, and through the design book, for something that I could base a design around. However there was one little design that I kept being drawn back to. It was a pony, just black ink, like a small Chinese pony. No matter how often I walked away from it, I found myself back in front of it again. It fitted. And so I got it, on my upper left arm.



The funny thing about this tattoo is that I hadn’t been near a horse for 10 years. I’d done a good job of wrapping myself around a tree trunk back then and decided that horses were not going to be a part of my future. But shortly after that tattoo, while on holidays, HATT (husband at the time) and I decided to go for a bush ride. It was due to that ride (my ankle seized up after half an hour in the stirrup) that I forced the issue with my doctors and they finally realised I had bone spurs in my ankle and needed surgery. Within months I was riding every week and working weekends at the stables in town. Something I could not have even imagined when I was choosing the tattoo.

And so, on to the next one.

I came across this image in a book on Mythology that I bought. It is (according to them) a stylised bird, probably a crow or raven, drawn from a Spanish Celtic pot of c.100BC.


With this image was a story.

The Washer at the Ford
At times rivers and streams possessed a sinister symbolism as the boundaries between life and death. One common theme is that of the Washer at the Ford – the war goddess who waited at a ford, sometimes in the form of a woman, sometimes as a crow or rave, and determined which of the warriors who passed would perish on the battlefield that day.

On their way to battle, a band of warriors stopped at a fod, where they beheld a terrible sight. A tall phantom woman, her eyes red and angry, glowered at them through grey, matted hair. At her feet, which were awash with blood, lay the mangled corpses of warriors, some so hideously disfigured that not even their mothers would have recognised them.

As the warrior band gaped in horror, the woman let out a hideous, shrieking laugh that sent a shiver of terror down their spines. Slowly, she raised her arm and pointed a bony finger at each man in turn. At last the chief of the band found the strength to approach the woman. With much effort, he forced himself to speak. "Who are you?" he asked.

"I?" she screeched, "I am the Morrigan, the Phantom Queen. Some call me the Washer at the Ford. I sleep on Mount Knocknarea, deep in the Cairn of Maeve. My work is to haunt all the streams of Ireland, washing away all the sins of men." "Who, then," asked the band’s war-chief, "are the sinful men who lie in this gory heap before us? Are they those you have killed and maimed today?"

The Morrigan cackled again. "I did not kill these men, nor have I so much as harmed a hair on their heads!" She peered deep into the warrior’s eyes.

"Look again at these dead warriors. They are the very men that stand behind you, as they will be this evening, after the battle. I am merely washing the bloody from their limbs."

The chieftan looked again at the corpses, and began to make out the features of some of the comrades accompanying him.

The Morrigan slowly bent down to rummage among her gory bounty, then held up an object for the chief to see. He turned to look and beheld, dangling by bloody locks, his own severed head.

-- Mythology General Editor C. Scott Littleton, Duncan Baird Publishers 2002

I don’t know about you, but that story just gave me chills.

I was going to go into a bit of a political blurt about decision makers facing the visceral consequences of their own actions, but I just can’t do it justice.