What is the difference between a swallow tattoo and a sparrow tattoo?

What does the swallow/sparrow tattoo mean?

• Hey. I want to get a swallow/sparrow tattoo, and I KNOW a lot of people have this kind of tattoo, but that's not my point. I want to figure out what it really means. Because, when ...show more

• Answer:

  It traditionally has nothing to do with people in prison. Those who have them have borrowed them from traditional tattoo meanings. It started out as a sailor's tattoo, plain and simple. Often, it was used to mark a certain number of miles sailed. It was also supposed to bring good luck, so some sailors got one or two before setting out on a voyage, to bring them luck and ensure that they'd come back safely. Many ancient cultures (and it's still a belief held in some places today) believed that the sparrow is one of the only creatures which can see the human soul when it leaves the body. They can see it descending to enter the body of a baby before it is born, and they can see it leaving the body of a person who dies. It also has the power to aid the spirit in traveling to heaven. Some sailors with sparrows got them so that if they died at sea, the sparrow could help carry their spirit to heaven. For that same reason, they are also sometimes used as memorial tattoos for a loved one who is gone. Often, that is one or two sparrows holding a banner with a name on it. In modern tattooing, there have been additions to the original symbols of sparrow tattoos. For instance, sparrows mate for life, so some people use them to symbolize finding their one true soul mate. There is also some symbolism associated with what the sparrow is doing. A singing sparrow has a different meaning from a diving sparrow, and I know both have to do with love, I just can't remember which is which. I have heard of prison ink where sparrows symbolize freedom, because they can come and go as they please and are not barred from the outside world, but prison ink usually adapts traditional tattoo symbols for its own purposes, and those are almost always tied to the actual act of being in prison instead of to the traditional symbolism for the tattoo. I would stay away from prison symbols if I were you. I just went and checked a book I have on symbols, and it says that the freedom associated with a sparrow tattoo is freedom to love the person you choose to love, NOT freedom from prison, so you can see that prison ink has slightly adapted the meaning to serve their own purposes. Naturally, freedom can be taken as "live your life," but that sense of it isn't mentioned at all--it simply mentions sailors, luck, and love. You're probably best off talking to a tattooist who REALLY knows what he or she is doing. Nothing sucks like getting a tattoo thinking it means one thing and then finding it means something else. It hasn't happened to me, but it has happened to other people I know. And since it's permanent, it's the suck. Good luck.