Here at Inked Magazine, we love October because it gives us the opportunity to refine and write about all of our various macabre passions. Today we will talk about executioners!
Especially medieval executioners. More specifically, the guy in a big black hood with an even bigger ax ready to sever your head from your body with one clean blow.
According to legend, they wore the mask to avoid being identified by the crowds that turned up at each execution. I personally don’t believe that at all. Even if you hide your face, people will be able to recognize you by various features, especially if they walk beside you in your small village, 365 days a year. Or they’d notice that there was only one person who didn’t show up for the execution, and at that point it would be pretty easy to narrow it down.
No, here’s what I think – they looked damn badass wearing a black hooded shirtless. That’s it. It’s an incredibly frightening image to see just before death, and isn’t it pretty much the point that an executioner wears a uniform at all?
It is particularly interesting that the executioner motif has become an integral part of traditional American tattooing. Many of the most well-known motifs have their roots in either Japanese tattooing (their dragons, tigers, koi, etc.) or naval tradition (anchors, swallows, clippers, etc.). And while there are many morbid tattoo motifs – if you look at the skulls – the medieval executioner seems very specific. The rise of electric tattooing happened a good 400 years after the hangman’s heyday, so it’s strange to see so many of them.
But on the other hand, it makes perfect sense. There are so many tattoo designs that revolve around the concept of bad luck or a bad hand, typical gallows humor. You can’t think of a better way to portray gallows humor than to tattoo the guy who actually hung from the gallows and pulled the lever to start it all.
Another fun little thing about these executioner tattoos is the way they are all very similar but each has their own distinct personality. That’s one of the reasons I fell in love with traditional American tattooing in the first place. Since Flash has been the backbone of this art form, tattoo artists often find a way to add their own touch to designs that have previously been done 10,000 times. If you peruse the gallery below, you will see more than a handful of tattoos that likely trace their lineage back to the same lightning piece hanging in some shop somewhere, and they do so without even crediting the artists who created them have the slightest idea of the case. Something about this really speaks to me. It’s cool.
Enjoy this gallery of executioner tattoos friends!