Traditional dyes of the Scottish Highlands are the
native vegetable dyes used in Scottish Gaeldom,
The following are the principal dyestuffs with the colours they produce. Several of the tints are very bright, but have now been superseded by various mineral dyes. The Latin names are given where known and also the Scottish Gaelic names for various ingredients. Amateurs may wish to experiment with some of the suggestions, but should note that urine (human or animal) is used in many recipes as a mordant. They should also note that a number of the recipes used are for more than one colour, and that this chart is only a guide.
Claret – "corcur" – a lichen scraped off rocks and steeped in urine for three months, then taken out, made into cakes, and hung in bags to dry. When used these cakes are reduced to powder, and the colour fixed with alum.
Dark "crotal" (type of lichen) – Parmelia cetarophilia
"Duileasg" (dulse), a kind of seaweed.
Currant with alum
Dark chestnut-brown
Roots of "rabhagach", the white water lily
Dark brown
Blaeberry with nut-galls
Reddish brown - Ruadh
The dark purple lichen ‘cen cerig cen du' (gun chéire gun dubh – i.e. neither crimson nor black) treated in the same way as the lichen for the claret dye.
Philamot
Yellowish "crotal" (type of lichen), the colour of dead leaves – Parmelia saxatilis
Drab or fawn
Birch bark, Betula alba
Green – Uaine
Green
Ripe privet berries with salt (listed for crimson too)
Wild mignonette, reseda luteola, "lus buidhe mòr", with indigo
"Rùsg conuisg", whin bark
Cow weed
"Lively" green
Common broom
Dark green
Heather, Erica cinera, "fraoch bhadain" with alum. The heather must be pulled before flowering and from a dark, shady place.
White "cnotal" – Lecanora pallacens, "cnotal geal"
Fine red
Rue – Gallium virum, "ladies' bedstraw". A very fine red is obtained from this. Strip the bark off the roots, then boil them in water to extract the remainder of the virtue, then take the roots out and put the bark in, and boil that and the yarn together, adding alum to fix the colour.
Gallium boreale – treated in the same way as gallium virum above.
Purple-red
Blaeberry – Vaccinium myrtilis, lus-nan-dearc, with alum, verdigris and sal-ammoniac
Crimson
"Cnotal corcur" – Lecanora tartarea, white and ground with urine. This was once in favour for producing a bright crimson dye.
Scarlet
Limestone lichen – Urceolaria calcaria, "Cnotal clach-aoil" – used by the peasantry in limestone districts, such as Shetland.
Ripe privet berries with salt. (Listed for green too!)
St John's Wort, achlasan Chalum cille, fixed with alum
Dirty yellow
Peatsoot. Obviously this ingredient on its own will not produce yellow
Rhubarb, (monk's) – Rymex alpinus – lus na purgaid
The process employed is to wash the thread thoroughly in urine long kept ("fual"), rinse and wash in pure water, then put into the boiling pot of dye which is kept boiling hot on the fire. The thread is lifted now and again on the end of a stick, and again plunged in until it is all thoroughly dyed. If blue, the thread is then washed in salt water but any other colour uses fresh water.
This article incorporates text from "Dwelly's [Scottish] Gaelic Dictionary" (1911) (Dath), with additions and corrections
Further reading
Fraser, Jean: Traditional Scottish Dyes, Canongate, 1983, ISBN 0-8624-1108-4