History of Woad All Rights Reserved 2011 History of Woad The only source of blue colouring throughout history has been indigo and woad (Isatis tinctoria) was its source in Europe. Grown in Europe since the Stone Age it has a long association with East Anglia, notably with Boudicca and the Iceni tribe who used woad to colour their faces before going into battle. Further north the Picts also gained notoriety for their body painting with the blue woad dye. The Romans referred to these Ancient Britons as 'Picts' as it is Celtic for "painted". Traditional Woad Processing It was grown as a field crop and picked in its first year. The leaves were chopped up into a paste by a horse driven mill and then made into balls by hand. These were left to dry in special drying sheds for about four weeks until they became hard like wood. The dried balls were broken up into a powder, sprinkled with water and allowed to ferment. This was known as couching. When the couched woad was dry, it was packed into barrels ready for the dyer.

The dyer poured hot water onto the couched woad in the vat, added potash or urine. This mixture would ferment for three days before the dyebath was ready, and cloth was wetted before being immersed into the vat. Woad balls were very valuable and were used for trading. In 1286, foreign woad merchants had a trading agreement with the citizens of Norwich as there had been a dispute over dock charges in London, where they previously traded. During the early 1300s the woad merchants of Amiens were increasing their sales of woad to Norwich because of the expansion of the cloth industry. In the mid-1580s woad growing was restricted by the government as grain supplies were beginning to be threatened by woad over-production, which was six times more valuable at that time. Elizabeth I overturned this restriction in 1601 but would not allow any processing near her palaces because of its offensive smell. Asian indigo from Indigofera tinctoria was grown in the colonies and slowly this replaced the use of woad in indigo dye vats.

With the imported indigo from South East Asia and the development of synthetic indigo, (which was cheaper to create), the last woad mill in Lincolnshire closed in 1932. For more information about the history of woad, we can recommend a very good booklet by John Edmonds entitled "The History of Woad and the Medieval Woad Vat". It is an enlightening read, and is available from our online shop . We also make woad balls which, again, are available from our online shop when in season. You might also like to visit our Additional Resources page, which contains a list of other useful references. Boudicca's warpaint puts farmer on the woad to recovery - Telegraph Boudicca's warpaint puts farmer on the woad to recovery By Sarah Lonsdale 12:01AM BST 28 Sep 2003 Woad, the plant whose deep blue pigment was used as a warpaint by the ancient Britons to frighten their enemies, is to be farmed commercially in Britain for the first time in 500 years.

Large-scale production of woad, which was most famously used by the warrior queen Boudicca, finally died out in the 16th century when cheaper dyes imported from India made it uneconomic. Now, however, farming of the spinach-like plant, which produces colours ranging from pale blue to indigo, is to be resumed by a Norfolk farmer, who intends to sell woad pigment to clothes manufacturers. Ian Howard, who will begin planting next year, has conducted a successful trial at his farm near Dereham, Norfolk. He intends to market the natural pigment as an environmentally friendly alternative to synthetic indigo, which is made using aniline, a by-product of oil, formaldehyde and potassium cyanide. Some small clothes designers, including the British firm Boudicca, which exhibited at London Fashion Week last week, have already used Mr Howard's woad-based indigo for their blue colours. Mr Howard also hopes to persuade jeans manufacturers to use woad to dye denim. "Woad is easy to grow, seems to like the soil and climate, and is environmentally friendly," he said.

"I love the wonderful rich blue colour it produces and the fact that I am doing something unique." Mr Howard, whose forearms are almost permanently blue from his dyeing experiments, decided to turn to woad production after his farm income from growing wheat, sugar beet and potatoes dropped in the late 1990s. "I was snowed under with bureaucracy, and Blair's apparent indifference to the countryside took the fun and buzz out of farming," he said. "I was very disillusioned with farming, but now it has become fun again." Mr Howard's decision to grow woad is particularly appropriate. His farm is on land which once belonged to the Iceni, the tribe led by Boudicca that rebelled against the Roman conquest and sacked Colchester and London in ad60. Pliny, the Roman historian, described how the ancient Britons' "blue aspect made them look more fearsome" - their appearance created either by applying woad body paint, or tattoos etched in woad. In the 1995 film Braveheart, William Wallace, played by Mel Gibson, wears woad in the battle scenes to dramatic effect, but this is probably an anachronism, as the dye was no longer in use.

The blue threads in the Bayeux Tapestry were dyed using woad and the blue in the tapestry is the only colour not to have faded in more than 900 years. Woad was also used as a natural insecticide. When woad leaves are harvested, in July and September, they are washed and heated in hot water for several minutes. The blueish water is then mixed with chalk and left to settle. A blue paste is left after the water is poured off and this, when dry, can be ground into a fine powder to be used in paints, dyes and ink-making. Clothes dyed with woad indigo at first appear yellow, but as they dry they turn green, then turquoise then finally deep blue. Mr Howard's experiments show that in good growing conditions with plenty of sun, almost 10 tons of woad leaves per acre can be produced twice a year. Each ton of leaf produces about 2lb of indigo pigment, worth about £200. His trial received financial backing from Spindigo, a research partnership which also involves Reading University and the University of Bristol's biological sciences department, aimed at showing farmers how they can use alternative crops to boost their falling incomes.

Kerry Gilbert, a researcher in biological sciences at Bristol University, said: "We are delighted that Mr Howard has decided to go ahead and farm woad commercially." Although woad has not been grown commercially since the 16th century, it was produced in Lincolnshire during the 1920s and 1930s to provide dye for Royal Air Force uniforms, before the adoption of synthetic colourings. It has also been grown occasionally by artisan weavers and spinners for their own use. A Plant Used By Ancient Britons Found To Have Properties To Fight Cancer ( Researchers have found that plant ‘Woad...) HOME >> MEDICINE >> NEWS A Plant Used By Ancient Britons Found To Have Properties To Fight Cancer Researchers have found that plant ‘Woad’ which was once used as war p...It was explained that the plant was used to get blue dye for the w...The researchers led by Stefania Galletti of the University of Bo...The researchers found that its derivatives could kill some plant p...Explaining that recent studies had found that people who ate who a...

Researchers have found that plant ‘Woad’, which was once used as war paint by ancient Britons and Celtic warriors to strike fear into the hearts of their enemies, could now// be used in the battle against cancer It was explained that the plant was used to get blue dye for the war paint is a rich source of a compound that fights breast cancer, scientists have found. They also mentioned that Woad, which belongs to the same plant family as cauliflower and broccoli, contains high levels of the compound glucobrassicin. The researchers, led by Stefania Galletti, of the University of Bologna, Italy have discovered that Woad contains 20 times more glucobrassicin than broccoli. They explained that they have been able to increase its concentration by damaging the plant, as when they found that when the leaves were damaged the plant released glucobrassicin as a defense mechanism. The researchers found that its derivatives could kill some plant pests, and that importantly they also have anti-tumor properties and are especially effective against breast cancer. The researchers already suggested that eating vegetables rich in chemicals such as glucobrassicin might help protect people against cancer.

Later studies have suggested that glucobrassicin cleanses out cancer-causing compounds including derivatives of estrogen. Explaining that recent studies had found that people who ate who ate foods rich in glucosinolates had reduced levels of chemicals linked to smoking-related lung cancer, the researchers said that it has been so far difficult to extract enough glucobrassicin from plants to test its effect. Dr Stefania Galletti and her team now hope that their findings would make it easier to perform such studies. She told the Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture, “The availability of glucobrassicin in good amounts and at low cost could finally permit studies to be performed in order to clarify the anti-cancer role o f glucobrassicin-rich vegetables, like broccoli, in the human diet.” Dr Kat Arney of Cancer Research UK said, “The natural world is a rich source of molecules that can benefit human health. This new way of growing Woad, a plant from the same family as broccoli and cauliflower, could allow researchers to get hold of larger quantities of potential anti-cancer agents. These can then be tested further in the lab and in patients.

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Balls of Woad “When Mel Gibson, playing the 13th-century Scottish warrior William Wallace, smeared his face in woad and hollered ‘Freedom!’ for the Scots against the English in the film Braveheart, he was following a tradition that went back more than 1,000 years to the days of Boadicea,” wrote Caroline Donald in the article “Lady sings the Blues’.” Both the word Briton and Pict are from older words meaning painted. There are those who think the Britons painted themselves with woad – not so much to frighten the enemy but, as it has great astringent properties, to help scars heal after a battle (re: Roman soldiers with Hydromel and modern hospitals with Manuka honey). When merchants came back from the East with their beautiful indigo dyes, the European growers of the woad plant (Erfurt, Toulouse, Amiens) from which blue dye was made were so worried that they instituted all sorts of protectionist policies. Colbert, the finance minister, faced with Louis XIV’s expensive expansionist warlike ways, tried to cut down on France’s importation of foreign goods.

He founded Royal Manufacturing factories and ordered the French to source their raw materials from inside France. Colbert controlled the production of dyes by using only home grown woad and rose madder. In 1609, the French government ordered the death penalty for those who used indigo rather than woad! Pastel or Guede In England, indigo was declared poisonous (untrue) and was banned until 1660. So woad continued to be used and later helped the indigo to fix better. I read somewhere it was used by puritans to fix the black in their clothes and that policemen’s uniforms were still dyed with it until the 1930s when the last woad mill in Europe (Lincolnshire) closed. Widows wearing black were known to be wearing widow’s weeds. Some say this expression comes from the Old German for garment, but I heard it was from the fact that the colour black came from woad which is a plant that spreads like Japanese knotweed and so became known as a ‘weed.’ It has this reputation to the point where several American states forbid its growth – notably California, Utah and Washington.

Woad (Isatis Tinctoria) grown in Normandy and Picardy from the earliest times was called guede, or in the south of France, pastel. In Normandy it was used to dye the linen which was produced here in great quantities until the end of the 19th century. In the south, they mixed it into chalk and created the first pastel! Around Toulouse and near Nimes, in the south, they dyed thick woven cotton with it and the colour was known as bleu de Nimes or as Americans say ‘blue denim’. Woad is a medium to tall herb. From the base rosette the stalk grows up bearing yellow florets about 4mm in diameter. I planted mine 4 years ago and have to dig out large patches as it invades the whole garden. Most of the dye is in the leaves and they are harvested in July and August in the second year of growth. The steeped leaves used to be rolled into balls (called boules de cocagne = woad balls) and were stored until needed for producing dye.

As Europe got richer in the 16th centuries, the areas around where pastel or woad was grown became known as Le Pays de Cocagne (Woad Country) because it was the blue dye that created the riches for the area and by extension Le Pays de Cocagne came to mean a very rich area. Breughel's Pays de Cocagne Many European countries use the expression but the etymology is varied. The English referred to rich lands as the Land of Cockaigne. The Dutch/Germans thought it came from the word for cakes or pastries (kokke etc.) and others thought it referred to the fact that there was an abundance of food and this was well cooked. The truth lies somewhere between Brueghel’s 1567 painting “Le Pays de Cocagne” (Woadland or the Land of Milk and Honey) showing a cleric, a soldier and a peasant lying replete on the ground surrounded by foods that fly onto their plates or drip directly into their mouths and the prosperity brought to the area of France now known as the Pays de Cocagne – Land of the Woad Balls which lies in the triangle between Toulouse, Albi and Carcassonne.

Think, Toulouse sausages, pate de foie gras, cassoulet de carcassonne, and goose fat for cooking, and you will appreciate how this area was known as the land of plenty! Pays de Cocagne Map As the demand for less-polluting dyes has grown, the EU funded the Spindigo project and farmers in Norfolk (UK), Spain, France and Portugal are harvesting woad and indigo plants and selling the dyes and products. You need one metric tonne of woad leaves to extract a kilo of pigment! I have already ordered a blue silk scarf and have decided that a woad-dyed beret is a must have for someone living in France. For further information: Where do dyes come from? Undersea Exploration Where do dyes come from? Originally, dyes were made from animals and plants. A sea snail named murex yields a rare expensive dye called tyrian purple. The blue dye that ancient Britons used to paint their bodies comes from the woad plant. The yellow dye, saffron, comes from the autumn crocus. And the madder plant yields an orange-red dye called madder.

Today, most dyes are made by chemists in the laboratory. A murex shell Isatis tinctoria 'Woad' Seeds Description Details This European native and ancient crop has a long and complex history, Woad has recently captured popular imagination as producing the blue dye for body paint used by the Celts. It is found in many parts of Great Britain, but not fully naturalized, except near Tewkesbury, where, it appears to be indigenous. This fashionable plant has a fresh wildflower appearance that can brighten any garden. As a biennial it grows one year, flowers and produces seed the second year and dies. The seedlings develop rosettes that produce large taproots during the first year. The following spring, new leaves grow from the crown bud in the rosette, and flowering begins with the exact timing dependent upon elevation. The crop initially looks similar to spinach but later, with its bright yellow flower, it looks much like oilseed rape in the field. The top of each stalk is branched with many yellow flowers which turn into large, flat, blue-black, decorative seed heads.

Woad has been grown for its indigo-blue pigment in Britain and throughout Europe since the Stone Age and cultivated for its medicinal properties since the 13th century. It has now been almost superseded by imported indigo from South East Asia and with synthetic dyes. It is currently cultivated to a small extent in Lincolnshire, in the south of France and in Flanders. Sowing: Sow in late winter/late spring or late summer/autumn. Woad seed has a germination inhibiting chemical that is water soluble. It is washed into the soil by rain. This allows the seed to remain dormant for long periods waiting the ideal moisture conditions for optimal growth. It also inhibits the growth of other plants that may compete with the woad. When beginning woad seed indoors it may be helpful to soak the seed overnight to remove this germination inhibitor. Sown the seed, thinly spaced, in shallow drills directly outdoors or in seed trays. Lightly cover with soil and water well. Easy to grow, Woad germinates in 1 to 2 weeks. Thin or transplant seedlings 30cm (12in) apart when they are large enough to handle.

Cultivation: Woad plants like an alkaline soil, so apply lime to the soil about a week before transplanting. For use as a dye - for dark colours woad needs plenty of nitrogen, which it can get from fertilisers such as dried blood & bone meal or hoof & horn meal. Like other plants of the cabbage family, woad plants are susceptible to club root. Rotate annually and do not plant where other brassicas have been grown. Hardy to -15°C (5°F) It will take 20 months to flower. The leaves are harvested when fully grown and 3 - 4 harvests can be made in total Plants self-sow freely when they are grown in a suitable position, though they tend not to thrive if grown in the same position for more than two years. To prevent woad from self seeding cut back all but one or two flower stalks and the remaining flowers will provide all the seeds you need for the next season. Harvesting: Cut leaves from first year woad plants with secateurs. Woad planted in November can be harvested from end of June till early August. Planted in March it can be harvested from July until September.

First frosts may destroy the colour although some people manage to get colour all the year round. Use as a Dye: Clothes dyed with woad indigo at first appear yellow, but as they dry they turn green, then turquoise then finally deep blue. Often used alongside Madder, Weld and Chamomile, together with Woad, they are the very best natural dyes for temperate areas. Madder makes shades of red, Weld and Chamomile yields a bright yellow, and Woad gives blues. (Indigotin is the blue dye, whether you get it from woad- Isatis tinctoria, Indigofera tinctoria, or some other source.). They are all quite colourfast and produce excellent quality dyes that are used amongst artists etc who want to work with natural dyes. Woad mills are still worked at Wisbech, but not for the dye itself, the produce also improve the quality, colour and fixes true indigo, and is also used to form a base, or mordant, for a black dye.

In commercial use, for a typical year, an acre of woad yields around 1kg of pigment and costs around £400 to produce compared to just £2.75 for a synthetic equivalent. Although woad has not been grown commercially since the 16th century, it was produced in Lincolnshire during the 1920s and 1930s to provide dye for Royal Air Force uniforms, before the adoption of synthetic colourings. It has also been grown occasionally by artisan weavers and spinners for their own use. Medicinal Uses: Woad's medicinal uses have been known as far back as the late 1500s in traditional Chinese medicine. It is an astringent plant known for reducing fever and inflammation and is reported to have antiviral properties. The parts of the plant used in natural medicine are the leaves, roots, and pigment. Other Uses: Woad was also used as a natural insecticide. It is currently being grown commercially on a small scale in Germany as a wood preservative. (An item on BBC's Radio 4 Farming Programme).

Origin: Woad is native to the steppe and desert zones of the Caucasus, Central Asia to eastern Siberia and Western Asia, but is now also found in southeastern and some parts of Central Europe. It has been cultivated throughout Europe, especially in Western and southern Europe since ancient times. Pliny, the Roman historian, described how the ancient Britons 'blue aspect made them look more fearsome' - their appearance created either by applying woad body paint, or tattoos etched in woad. In the 1995 film Braveheart, William Wallace, played by Mel Gibson, wears woad in the battle scenes to dramatic effect, but this is probably an anachronism, as the dye was no longer in use. The blue threads in the Bayeux Tapestry were dyed using woad and the blue in the tapestry is the only colour not to have faded in more than 900 years. Nomenclature: The English name is comes from our Saxon forefathers, their name for it was Wad or Waad, hence the name Woad.

It is also called French Guède (supposed to be derived from Gaudum, now Gualdo, the name of a town in the Roman States, where it was extensively cultivated). Woad is also the name of a blue dye produced from the plant. Woad is pronounced to rhyme with road. In Germany of the Middle Ages, the very wealthy merchants with the fanciest houses in town were called waid herren 'Gentlemen of woad', and by 1392, the Saxon town of Erfurt (Thuringia, Germany) had gained enough wealth through the woad trade to establish its own university. Throughout the Middle Ages the major centre of woad production in France was Languedoc and the area earned the name of ‘Pays de Cocagne’ or 'The land of woad balls' Additional Information The Problem of the Woad The Problem of the Woad by Saigh Kym Lambert and copyright � 2004 Saigh Kym Lambert (n� Dhoireann), all rights reserved, do not republish in any form The following is actually the beginning of a project. I convey information I have but also bring up more questions.

This will be an ongoing project so I appreciate any resources readers might point me to and please check back for updates Untrue Fact? Everyone knows it is a fact that the Picts painted and/or tattooed themselves with woad. The problem is that we don't know this at all. This one of the most pervasive unsubstantiated ideas about them, yet even well educated Celtic scholars will casually note this as a fact. Yet it isn't a fact at all. Yes, there is reason to believe that the name "Pict" may have refered to them marking their bodies, as might the Irish "Cruithne." Yet it might simply be a reference to their art, which is notably different than other people in the area at the time. There actually are no contemporary references to the PICTS as having body markings. And there are certainly no contemporary references to the medium used by the Picts if they did have such markings. The most commonly used evidence of the use of woad is from Julius Caesar's The Conquest of Gaul (pg. 111), but there are several problems with this being said to prove the use of woad by the Picts.

One is that he was gathering this from Celts seen in what is now Kent, England, not Scotland, although he made the attribution to all the British. He also was writing over 300 years before we can really say there were Picts (see my article The Shadowy Painted People in regards to the "when" of the Picts). This is the problem with his statement being used to prove the Picts painted themselves, but there is a further problem with it being about woad. What he wrote was "Omnes vero se Britanni vitro inficiunt, quod caeruleum efficit colorem." Which translates to "All the British color themselves with glass, which produces a blue color." "Vitro" translates to a type of blue-green glass that was popular among the Romans, it does not translate to woad. Or at least it didn't, now it is so accepted that some lexicons give it as such. But I have spoken with those who have studied Latin and this is not the classic translation of the word. It has been changed to fit the idea that it is woad, which it never meant.

The only other evidence given is Pliny the Elder's discussion of women's funeral rites that involve using a "Glastum" a "plantain-like" plant to paint themselves to look "like Ethiopians." (Pliny the Elder, Book 22 ) Yet this also cannot be referring to woad because Pliny was well acquainted with woad (isatis) and mentioned elsewhere about its medical usage ( Book 26 ). He would never have mistaken this cabbage for a plantain, a plant he clearly would have known as well that shares only a spread of leaves as a similarity, but size, texture, leaf and stalk types are far different. Therefore while there does appear to be a plant used, it could not have been woad. Likely it produced the color they used without the work that it takes to get Indigo from woad, as well. Therefore this quote doesn't work to prove woad either, in fact, works rather well against it as woad is mentioned later for other uses. It, of course, is not as often used in arguing for the use of woad because most people looking to prove this are doing so for warriors on the battle field, not women in mourning.

Now the "known fact" that the Picts tattooed themselves with woad is highly unlikely. I do contend that they probably did tattoo or paint themselves and that their name may have indicated that they were the last British Celts to do so. Yet, this is not a fact, only my belief based on the name, the tendency people have to decorate themselves in general, and the known fact that at least one Celt prior to their time did. So I do think it likely that they did and if not, I even more so believe that earlier Celts did. However, I do not believe that it could have been woad. Why not Woad? Simply put I see no reason for believing that it was woad, none at all. There is actually not a single reference that says that it was, just creative translations. Neither of the only two accounts ever cited actually mention woad. This puts us in the bind of having only negative proof that it isn't, but at least we are no longer looking at any proof that it was. There are many reasons to question woad as a good body paint or tattoo ink. Frankly it can not be tattooed and I caution anyone thinking of doing so that it is a foolish and dangerous exercise.

I know I've been so stupid as to try it. It is caustic, will cause the wound to not heal properly and it will not heal in. You might get a vivid scar, but it will not be at all blue. I had a less traumatic time than others apparently, as can be seen by an account given by Pat Fish at the bottom of Woad and it's mis-association with Pictish Body Art . Kids, do not try this at home! It also makes a terrible body paint. You must mix it with something and anything any one has come up with either dries and flakes or smears. I have been told repeatedly that it stains the skin, but neither I nor anyone I know who has used it has had this happen (with the sole exception of someone who worked some into cloth with her fingers, but anyone who has handled things like that knows that anything will get into the frayed skin of ones fingertips for a bit including things that don't stain...dirt normally doesn't stain skin, I have had plenty spend a few days staining my fingers when gardening). Those who have reported staining have mostly been telling tales of things they heard, nothing more than hearsay.

There are a few people who have used blue coloring at events and had it stain, but as they have noted it being much lighter than Indigo it is not likely to have actually been woad no matter what they were told, more likely food coloring. And yes, the color is too dark to readily look blue against the skin, nothing at all like the Vitrum glass Caesar referred to. I spent years trying to convince myself that it worked. So with absolute lack of evidence that it was woad and all the evidence that it would have been a poor choice, there had to have been something else. And as we do have proof of something else, maybe we really need to give that more consideration than it has been given so far. Woad is a great source of dye for clothing. It simply does not work well as a body decoration. But Woad is an Antiseptic and a Hallucinogen One of the "facts" about woad that is often cited in regards to why people believe that it would have been used is that it has medicinal and psychoactive properties. Of course the Celts/Picts painted themselves all over with it, it put them into an altered state for fighting and helped keep their wounds from becoming infected.

But neither of these work. Yes, woad has astringent properties, which is one of the things that makes it a really bad tattoo ink. It seems it might have been used as a plaster and to staunch wounds and appears it might be antiseptic although none of this information seems heavily substantiated ( Isatis tinctoria ). However, that it would be antiseptic in it's BLUE form is doubtful, at least not in ancient times. It appears to require ammonia to become indigo, and their sources would have been urine and dung. It also seems to be too caustic to be truly antiseptic, from my own and others experiences. There is also the little problem that in battle you are not talking about some scratches that might become infected. Therefore any protection sought by body paint would be more of a magical warding, to prevent you from mortal wounds. It isn't a hallucinogen. It just isn't. All reports of experience as such are from sources that have never used it but heard stories of reenactors who got high on it. It is not in anyway psychoactive. It apparently makes a nice wood preservative, however. If Not Woad, What ?

One of the things that comes up a lot when discussing this is the lament that we have no Pictish bodies to examine to find out. This is true. By the definition of "Pict" we never will. But we do have earlier and more southerly Celtic bodies which prove that. The Lindow Man (actually Lindow Body II) does not have any woad found on it but clearly has copper and iron pigmentation on his body. At this point I have not been able to find out if this is tattooed (early tests showed it did not, see I.M. Stead, J.B. Bourke, and D. Brothwell. Lindow Man: The Body in the Bog but at that point they didn't seem to notice the copper/iron either) or simply painted, although I would find it an amazingly durable paint if it is the latter. (R.C. Turner and R.G. Scaife Bog Bodies: New Discoveries and New Perspectives see also this picture of the Lindow Man ) Either copper or iron can produce a blue pigment, both being much closer to the color of the vitrum glass that Caesar noted than the Indigo of woad.

The color is more attractive and the pigment more usable either for a body paint or a tattoo ink. Copper would be toxic, as it would likely contain arsenic. However, this sort of poisoning was likely common in areas where copper and bronze smelting was still being done and would take so long to show up that it would never be likely linked to a cause. Iron is appears unlikely to have any toxic affects. (Still, on the whole, if you are talking tattooing, stick to proper tattoo ink. If you want to get something that you feel replicates the ink of Iron Age Britain then investigate the shades and find inks that match.) There is actually some suggestion that iron pigment may well have been what was used, among the Picts, from a contemporary source. The quote by the poet Claudius Claudianus : "Venit et extremis legio praetenta Britannis, Quae Scotto dat frena truci ferronque notatas Perlegit examines Picto moriente figures" "[This legion], which curbs the savage Scot and studies designs marked in iron on the face of the dying Pict." (emphasis mine, quote found in T.C. Lethbridge The Painted Men pg.

161). Now this has often been interpreted to mean that they marked themselves by cutting with iron blades, however, it could also refer to iron pigment! How did Woad get into this? The earliest referencing I have found to woad as the translation for "vitro" or "Glastum" is to the 1695 edition of William Camden's Britannia (Laing and Laing The Picts and the Scots pg .2 ...it is unclear if this is just the edition they used or if it is not in the earlier ones) and this appears to coincide with the start of the "Indigo Wars" (when woad growers and processors were fighting the importation of Indigo, which is the same pigment but cheaper and easier to get out of the particular plant). From what little I have been able to find, it appears that this was first translating "vitro" and "glastum" to mean "woad." Chances are this is actually nothing more than propaganda to help create a sense of nationalistic pride in woad to support the woad growers and processors. However, this is something I have not yet done a great deal of research on.

I have no idea why, however, this took off to be so well accepted. Again, more research is needed there. Mythbusting the Woad "Facts" The question now comes is that now that we have reason to question or even totally dismiss the idea that woad was used by the Picts and/or Celts to paint and/or tattoo themselves, how do we bust the myth in a way that more people will question it? This is difficult and with the upcoming King Arthur movie with the Picts (?) being actually called "Woads" (because it's Celtic term rather than Roman? That's the story apparently given by the producers. Sorry, "woad" is a Germanic name for the plant, not Celtic) there will now be more people believing this. Worse than after Braveheart! It doesn't help that nearly all Celtic scholars outside of the few who have actually had contact with Lindow II simply accept that it is woad. Most mentions of it is in offhand remarks, referenced to Caesar or Pliny, the writers having no interest in the matter to actually consider that these references are lies. And so the myth is that well accepted.

How can we change it among those outside of academia if the scholars are still accepting it. Many reenactors and Celtic Pagans today wear woad, I did once, myself. It so very exciting to believe that I was wearing what my ancestor wore that I continued this romantic notion despite being very frustrated with how badly it actually worked for body paint. Never mind tattooing! I was wearing REAL WOAD after all. So much so that when it was noted to me that it probably wasn't, I was very resistant to letting go of the idea. So I went back to meditating on it while wearing it, I played with it and tried to make connections. There were no connections. It's impossible to wear authentic copper pigment, because it is very toxic and we know that now. Iron body paint might be something to look into. But it somehow lacks the romance that the term "woad" now has. Even though "woad" is not a Celtic word and the stuff is so awful to work with as a body paint, it still has it's power. For those of us into tattoos, we have those. But that is not for everyone.

There are those who still want woad to be the medium because they can get it and say it's real. Even though it is so obvious it isn't. I am hoping that as more information comes out regarding Lindow II and the translation issues that we will eventually get academics to start questioning this myth. I am not sure that within the Pagan and reenactment communities, however. I think we need some way to incite romance around the actual possibilities and I haven' t figured out how to do that yet. I hope that eventually there will be a way. This is something that may be very difficult to ever convince people of. If you found this of interest or use, please do consider the work put into it and help out Julius Caesar Divine Colors Conclusion: Echoes of the Past – The Thunderbolts Project ™ “Burst of Blue” by Midnight Fractals at DeviantArt Apr 27, 2016 Additional reflections of the divine colors in new words, body painting, tattooing, daubing the dead, etc. The celestial antics of what man began to think of as his god gripped him in a vice the hold of which continues to constrict him to the present day.

In ways that often verged on the bizarre, man sought to re-enact what he, or his ancestors, had lived through. And although he remembered quite correctly, certain quandaries more than once resulted in deficient preservation. But even while, in time, such issues were corrected, certain others were by then much too ingrained to overcome long-held mistaken concepts. This was especially true when such erroneous notions were embraced by man’s evolving cults, in which whatever happened to be misconstrued often turned into religious dogma. One such problem involved the creation of new words in order to express novel experiences. As already noted, one of these innovative concepts had to do with color. The description of proto-Saturn’s realm before a word for “purple” had been coined in certain languages resulted in blue-black or simply black as having been the concerned color. This is the reason we continue to run headlong into the designation of the planetary god in question as the black Saturn. Needless to say, it also accounts for the association of such items as black curtains and black stones with the Saturnian deity, some of which persist right to this day in the Meccan Ka’aba.

One of the means to keep these memories alive led certain tribes to paint their bodies blue. Among them were the Berbers and the ancient Britons.1 Among the latter were the least known members of the Celtic tribes who infiltrated into Britain from mainland Europe. The Romans, with whom they clashed, called them Picti, which means “the painted ones,” because of their blue-dyed skins. The English word “picture” and its various derivations is derived from the same Latin root. The dye with which the Picts painted themselves was produced from the plant Isatis tinctoria, popularly known as woad, which was once extensively cultivated in various parts of Great Britain.

As Julius Ceasar himself noted: “All the Britons dye their bodies with woad, which produces a blue color and gives them a wild appearance in battle.”2 The famous Celtic queen Boudicca, so beloved of the British, also known as Boadicea, was also said to have smeared herself with woad in her ravaging engagements against the Roman armies.3 The Scots, with whom they eventually united, still refer to the ancient Picts as Blueskins.4 Whether they actually painted themselves blue or not, tribes akin to that of Genghis Khan referred to themselves as the Blue Mongols.5 As with other matters, it is now difficult to ascertain whether this custom came about because the human epidermis had looked blue while proto-Saturn’s ultraviolet light shone on the world, or whether it was because men wished to emulate proto-Saturn’s changed appearance. There will be those who will claim that body painting antedates proto-Saturn’s postulated flare-up by several thousand years.

The evidence for this rests on the discovery of red ochre in various ancient sites, such as the 92,000-year-old Qafzeh Cave in Israel.6 Red ochre, which is a mixture of clay and iron oxide in the form of hematite, is believed to have been used by ancient man to dye the bodies of his dead kin in order to lend them a life-like appearance. These finds, however, have been dismissed by critics because of the uncertain dates attached to them as well as their intended use. After all, as has been pointed out, ochre supported various other utilizations.7 It was definitely used to paint animals on the walls of European caves,8 to polish bone implements in South Africa,9 while blocks of the material from that same site have been turned into works of art by being aesthetically decorated with incised designs.10 But even if body painting with red ochre was in vogue that long ago, it has nothing to do with the blue dyes that came in use later in time.

Even when it came to daubing the bodies of the dead, the much later Chinchorro of the Chilean Andes painted the mummified remains of their departed children with “shimmering blue-black paint”.11 Others will be fast in pointing out that not all Picts are known to have covered their bodies, or parts thereof, with woad, but only tattooed themselves with the blue dye.12 The Berbers definitely tattooed themselves, and they continued to do so down into modern times. As we shall be showing in a forthcoming sequel, the tattooing of bodies in blue or black designs also originated in imitation of what our ancestors saw their proto-Saturnian deity undergo. Long after the events in question, the Egyptian alchemists of Alexandria managed to produce a violet type of gold, which to us would be inferior, but which they deemed the very best. It was not merely looked upon as an extremely precious metal, but as a spiritually imbued substance.13 These alchemists hailed from the temple of Amon, the “hidden” Saturnian god, where alchemy was said to have been born.

Whether the “spirit” that was thought to permeate this violet gold was held to be Amon’s remains an open question. An odd religious rite that was practiced by the Maya leaves no doubt concerning its association with a Saturnian deity, the previously mentioned god Itzamna. According to them it was this god who presented them with the gift of writing.14 Thus, every year, in the month they called Uo, they commemorated a festival during which the priests would bring out their folded codices and spread them out on freshly-cut boughs “in the house of the local lord.” Sacred incense would then be burned to Itzamna and the wooden boards between which the codices were folded would be anointed with a concoction made from “virgin water” and an indigo pigment which is now known as Maya blue.15 Not everything blue or purple had a favorable connotation in world religions. In Japanese Buddhist wedding ceremonies, for example, neither bride nor bridegroom was allowed to wear garments containing any trace of purple for it was said that the marriage of those who do would speedily come to an end.

This superstition was supposedly based on the belief that purple dyes have a tendency to fade.16 Since Japanese dyes are well known for their durability, it is more likely that the custom originated due to the fact that proto-Saturn’s ultraviolet period did not last. As the Hopi well remembered, the purple glow eventually relinquished its hold on Earth when, during “the third phase of the dawn of Creation,” the light returned to red.17 It did not, however, transpire all that fast. Extracted from Chapter 12 of Metamorphic Star , one of the reconstruction books by Dwardu Cardona.

Question: What was the blue dye used by the ancient Britons as battle paint?
Answer: Woad