Before a door you stand attempting to get your bearings. Is a tattoo really what you want? A permanent reminder of whatever you thought the day you got it? Inside the door you walk into the tattoo parlour. The drawings all around the walls are vivid, as if someone’s imagination is being displayed before you. Does that destroy any trepidation that you had?

Inside the tattoo parlour, the walls are lined with sketches and rails of posters containing pre-made tattoo designs. Behind a sterile metal counter I see a man standing, a white surgical glove still on one hand, nothing on the other as he flicks through one of the many folders. He looks up, piercing eyes glancing to the potential customer. Upon his neck is an intricate flamed tattoo which follows lower down his arm.

Finally! You lay your fingertip heavily upon a specific design of a butter fly tattoo. It looks beautiful, stunning, but as you gaze at it you realize its just not quite right. With a defeated sigh, you flip the page and realize why. It is merely incomplete. A fairy would finish it off completely, and would enable you to convey all that you wanted to convey.

A butterfly. A change in your life. You came along to mark that anyway, didn’t you? You have moved on now, grown up, it’s a new chapter, a transformation. And that is what you instantly think of when you see the butterfly. You see it, and you know you will always be reminded of your childhood, of your innocence and of its fragility.

Fairies are very similar to Butterflies. In designs such as butterfly - fairy tattoo designs, the fairies are often seen to be playing with the butterflies. They usually connote innocence, youth, wonder and awe. This may be because for many, magic is a part of our imagination, our childhood. The fairies are a perfect symbol of the magical world in which we once emerged ourselves.

The combination of the butterfly and fairy could be simply because you think it is beautiful, but if you are like me, it may symbolize the fragility of childhood. Or, for others, the transformation from one thing, child hood innocence, into another, maybe explained by the womanly appearance of the fairy themselves.

Tags: Tattoos