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 Several of the tints are very bright, but have now been superseded for convenience of usage by various mineral dyes.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, as urine (human or animal) is used in many recipes as a mordant. A number of the recipes used are for more than one colour, and that this chart is only a guide, and also that Scottish Gaelic spelling is subject to variations. Many of the dyes are made from lichens, the useful ones for this purpose being known as crottle.
Claret – "corcur" – the cudbear lichen, Lecanora tartarea, 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.
Black (finest) –
Common dock root with copperas.
"Darach" – oak bark and copperas
(also grey), "seileastair", iris root
"Sgitheach", hawthorn bark with copperas
Alder bark with copperas
Blue-black
Common sloe – Prunus spinosa – "preas nan àirneag"
Red bearberry – Arbutus uva ursi, "grainnseag"
Blue
Blaeberry (Vaccinium myrtillus) with alum or copperas
Elderberry (Sambucus nigra) with alum
"Ailleann" elecampane
Brown
Common yellow wall lichen – Xanthoria parietina
Dark "crotal" (type of lichen) – Parmelia cetarophilia
"Duileasg" (dulse), a kind of seaweed.
Currant with alum
Dark chestnut-brown
Roots of "rabhagach", the white waterlily
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 pubescens
Green
Ripe privet berries with salt (listed for crimson too)
Wild Mignonette (Reseda), reseda luteola, "lus buidhe mòr", with indigo
"Rùsg conuisg", whin bark
Cow weed
"Lively" green
Common broom
Dark green
Heather, Erica cinerea, "fraoch bhadain" with alum. The heather must be pulled before flowering and from a dark, shady place.
Iris leaf ("Duilleag seileisteir")
Magenta
Dandelion, Taraxacum officinale, "bearnan Brìde"
Orange
Ragweed ("Stinking Billy") – Senecio jacobaea, "buaghallan"
Barberry root –Berberis vulgaris, "barbrag"
Dark orange
Bramble –Rubus fruticosus, "preas smeur"
Purple
Euonymus (Spindle tree), with sal-ammoniac
Sundew – Drosera rotundifolia, "lus-na-feàrnaich"
Blaeberry – Vaccinium myrtillus, with alum
Red
Tormentil – Potentilla tormentilla, "leanartach"
Rock lichen – Ramalina scopulorum, "cnotal"
White "cnotal" – Lecanora pallescens, "cnotal geal"
Fine red
Rue – Galium verum, "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.
Galium boreale – treated in the same way as gallium virum above.
Purple-red
Blaeberry – Vaccinium myrtillus, 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!)
Violet
Wild cress – Nasturtium officinalis "biolair"
Bitter vetch – Lathyrus tuberosus—cairmeal
Bilberries fixed with alum
Yellow
Apple-tree, ash and buckthorn
Poplar and elm
Bog myrtle, Roid
Ash roots
Teazle – Dipsacus fullonum – lùs-an-fhùcadair/leadan
Bracken roots – Raineach mhòr
Cow weed
Tops and flowers of heather, Erica, fraoch
Wild mignonette, Reseda luteola, "lus buidhe mòr", dried, reduced to powder and boiled.
Leaves and twigs of dwarf birch, beithe beag
Bright yellow
Sundew – Drosera rotundifolia, "lus-na-feàrnaich" with ammonia
Rich Yellow
St John's Wort, achlasan Chalum cille, fixed with alum
Dirty yellow
Peat soot. Obviously this ingredient on its own will not produce yellow
Rhubarb, (monk's) – Rumex 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
