This design is chronicled in the old Northeastern Japanese folktale, "Tattoo Maiden".
"Tattoo Maiden"
A girl loses her lover and before he fades from her memory completely, she takes the pain of her remaining love and imbues it in a holly tattoo.
Yet the girl falls in love once more. Again she loses her lover. She engraves a tattoo of her love into her body again.
This time she engraves a divine snake so her lover's spirit will arrive safely at the place of the gods.
As the girl repeats love and loss, her skin grows filled with tattoos.
She cannot tolerate the pain of the tattoos and it takes its toll on her sanity, Meanwhile, her heart is eaten by the snake engraved on her soul.
This legend is widely known on the plains, but depending on the region, slight differences appear. In the mountains, the following changes can be found in the story.
This is called "The Tattoo Master."
"The Tattoo Master"
The girl who lost her lover goes to the mountain Master to relieve her pain (to confide in her).
On hearing of the girl's pains, the Master engraves the snake and holly on her own body and assumes the pain. The villagers, hearing of this, visit the Master one after another to relieve their pains as well.
Eventually, the Master's entire body is covered with tattoos. She who took on so many pains gets trapped in sleep from the pain of the engraved tattoos and cannot wake. Finally, she is eaten by the tattooed snake.
The story has one more version, this with an even more tragic ending.
It is likely a story designed to teach a lesson.
"The Tattoo Master (2)"
The Master covered in tattoos goes as far as to tattoo holly in her eyes. Then her tattooed eyes turn to mirror and the pains engraved on the Master are repelled back to the people who engraved them. In the end, every last person is eaten by the snake.
The part about "turning to mirror" may come from how snakes' eyes were traditionally thought to resemble mirrors.
Given the change in story, it appears that when the "Tattoo Master" legend of the mountains spread to the plains, it became more fable-like.
The story, with its priestess-like element of the Master, was corrupted into a city girl's foolish love story.
As far as the meaning of the "snake and holly" tattoo in this folktale, the "holly" tree represents the pain of love for the dead and pains of the heart.
The "snake" is employed here in the divine sense and its import seems tied into love and pathos for the dead that devours those including the girl and the Master.
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