In this month’s bilingual blog, Roddy Maclean looks at Lightfoot’s Flora Scotica (1777) insight into the many plants used for the dyeing of yarn.
Leugh ann an Gàidhlig / Read in Gaelic
Last year, I wrote a blog about references to native trees by the Reverend John Lightfoot (1735-88) in his grand publication Flora Scotica (London 1777). Lightfoot, a native of Gloucestershire, was a Fellow of the Royal Society and a close friend of Joseph Banks, the leading English botanist of his day, and he travelled extensively in Scotland in 1772 with the Welsh author Thomas Pennant and the Rev. John Stuart of Killin in Perthshire (later of Luss, Loch Lomond) who acted as his Gaelic authority and adviser.
In this blog, I shall look at some of Lightfoot’s comments about dyes made from our native flora and the Gaelic names that he recorded for some of the species. I noted in last year’s blog that birch leaves were used to create a yellow dye but Lightoot also remarks that yellow was obtained in ‘most of the Western Isles’ (where trees of any nature are in short supply) by boiling the yarn in water with the green tops and flowers of heather. While he includes this information under ‘Erica cinerea’ (Bell Heather or Fraoch a’ Bhadain ‘the heather of little tufts’), his description of the species and its uses suggests some confusion with Calluna vulgaris (Ling Heather or Fraoch) which in his day was included in the genus Erica.
Another plant that affords a yellow dye is the St John’s Wort, for which Lightfoot gives the Gaelic name Achlasan Chaluim Chille ‘St. Columba’s little armpit package’, reflecting its use ‘against the dire effects of witchcraft and enchantment’ by carrying it next to the skin under the left armpit. The yellow colour is supplied by the dried plant being boiled in water with alum (aluminium sulphate). Interestingly, Lightfoot also tells us that in Sweden the flowers were used to give a purple tinge to their spirituous liquors.
Another plant that supplies a yellow dye after being boiled with alum is the Common Nettle (Feanntag or Deanntag in Gaelic). However, in this case it is the roots that are used, rather than the above-ground parts of the plant. With the Crab-apple tree (Abhal-fiadhaich ‘wild apple’ is the Gaelic name supplied by Lightfoot), it is the bark that supplies yellow dye, being described by the botanist as ‘citron’ (a dark yellow).
Lightfoot also notes that in Sweden the Bog Myrtle (Myrica gale) – Roid in Gaelic – was used to dye yarn yellow but he fails to note if the same was true in Gaelic Scotland. While the lexicographer Edward Dwelly clearly sourced material from Flora Scotica for his own illustrated Gaelic-English dictionary, he gives a broader reference to botanical dyes under the headword dath ‘colour’. He notes that yellow was also obtained from ash roots, bracken roots, teasel, the leaves and twigs of dwarf birch and from other plants, including sundews which had been steeped in ammonia.
Lady’s Bedstraw (Galium verum) was used extensively in Gaelic Scotland as a rennet (or, as Lightfoot has it, ‘runnet’) to curdle milk, giving it one of its Gaelic names Lus an Leasaich ‘the rennet plant’. It has beautiful yellow flowers and was used for the domestic production of dye for colouring yarn; however, the colour achieved in the dyeing process is not yellow, but ‘a very fine red, not inferior to that from madder itself’ and, in an appendix to his book, Lightfoot describes how it is the roots, not the flowers, that provided the colour. They were processed in the Highlands thus: ‘they first strip the bark off the roots, in which bark the virtue principally lies. They then boil the roots thus stripped in water, to extract what little virtue remains in them, and after taking them out, they last of all put the bark into the liquor, and boil that and the yarn they intend to dye together, adding alum to fix the colour.’ Lightfoot gives the Gaelic name Rù for this species (a name still used in Uist), which may derive from the same root as ruadh ‘red, russet’.
The bark of the Blackthorn or Sloe bush – Droigheann ‘thorn’ or Preas nan Àirneag ‘the bush of the little kidneys’ (referring to the fruit), according to Flora Scotica, also provides a red dye, as do the roots of the Marsh Cinquefoil (Potentilla palustris), for which Lightfoot gives no Gaelic name, although Còig-bhileach Uisge, an equivalent to the Latin-derived English name, is generally used today. Lightfoot also tells us that the ‘juice’ of the blackthorn, with vitriol or copperas (ferrous sulphate), makes a good ink.
For those of a scholarly bent, the Gaelic word corcar is generally interpreted to mean ‘scarlet, crimson, purple’, although it is recognised as being archaic and largely obsolete in general discourse today. However, corcar is also defined in Dwelly’s dictionary as ‘the mossy white scurf adhering to large stones, from which the Gael make a pleasing crimson dye.’ The lexicographer goes on to explain just how this was achieved.
Lightfoot’s description is even more detailed. He identifies the ‘scurf’ as a lichen and tells us that the colour of the dye is ‘claret or pompadour’. The Highlanders, after scraping it from rocks, and cleaning it, would ‘steep it in urine for a quarter of a year. Then, taking it out, they make it into cakes, and hang them up in bags to dry. These cakes are afterwards pulverized, and the powder is used to impart the colour, with an addition of alum to fix it’.
Lightfoot also identifies another lichen, giving it the Gaelic name Crotal, a general term for lichens today and the origin of the English word ‘crottle’ for lichens used in dyeing. It is processed in the same way as Corcar but produces a reddish-brown dye. Brown dye was also obtained from oak bark in the Highlands and, as Lightfoot notes, from elderberries in some other countries, although Dwelly indicates that elderberries were also used in Gaelic Scotland. Lightfoot also notes that in the Highlands a ‘dark chestnut’ colour was obtained from the roots of the White Water Lily (Nymphaea alba), for which he gave two Gaelic names – An Duilleag Bhàite ‘the drowned leaf’ (the common name today) and Rabhagach (meaning unclear).
The blaeberry plant (Vaccinium myrtillus) was much loved, and much used, in Gaelic tradition – particularly for its tasty and nutritious berries, and unsurprisingly the species boasts more than a dozen Gaelic names. The name supplied by Lightfoot is Lus nan Dearc ‘the plant of the berries’ which is presumably the term favoured by the Rev. John Stuart (who described the berries as ‘wholesome and cooling’). Lightfoot notes that the berries produce a violet dye but only after fixing with alum.
In addition to alum, copperas was used by dyers to modify or fix colours, and the latter is often mentioned in reference to production of a black dye. In the Highlands, a mixture of alder bark and copperas, boiled with the yarn, was used to provide a black dye. Lightfoot notes a similar result with the bark of the oak tree.
In the largely treeless islands, the Yellow or Flag Iris (Iris pseudacorus), was heavily used in dyeing. Lightfoot makes the following comment in Flora Scotica: ‘In Arran and some other of the Western isles, the roots are used to dye black, and in Jura they are boiled with copperas to make ink.’ He gives the species the Gaelic name Seilisdeir, a variant of the more common Seileasdair. Modern dyers in the West Highlands and Islands have found that this species can provide a variety of colours, depending on the quality of the water used and other factors.
The bark of the Hawthorn tree (Crataegus monogyna, Sgitheach in Gaelic) was also used to provide a black dye as was the bark of the Dog Rose (Rosa canina), both of them treated with copperas. The latter’s Gaelic name is given by Lightfoot as ‘An Fhearr-dhris’, although other authorities prefer Earradhris, interpreted by John Cameron (The Gaelic Names of Plants 1883) as meaning ‘the armoured prickly bush’, referring to its spines. Another interpretation might be ‘the prickly bush that comes after or at the end’ which at first sight seems a strange name. However, this species was recognised in Gaelic tradition as providing the very final fruit of the year, coming right at the end of the season. Rose hips are known as mucagan ‘little pigs’ in Gaelic, giving the plant an alternative name of Preas nam Mucag.
Another plant, locally abundant in the northern Gàidhealtachd, and which provided a black dye is the Crowberry (Empetrum nigrum). Lightfoot gives three Gaelic names for the species – Preas nam Fiantag ‘the bush of the crowberries’, Fiantaga (similar) and Dearca-fithich ‘raven berry’. He notes the following about the species: ‘The Highlanders frequently eat the berries, but they are no very desirable fruit. If taken too copiously they are reported sometimes to bring on a slight headache. Boiled in alum-water they will dye yarn of a black fuscous colour.’
To conclude, it might seem that dyers in the Highlands had to rely on buying chemicals such as alum or copperas from elsewhere to ensure the efficacy of their craft, but this is not entirely true. In Flora Scotica, John Lightfoot notes the use of the Fir Clubmoss (Huperzia selago today but Lycopodium selago in the 1770s): ‘In the island of Raasay … in Ross-shire and some other places, the inhabitants make use of this plant instead of alum, to fix the colours in dying.’ This diminutive non-flowering plant, known as Garbhag an t-Slèibhe ‘the little rough one of the moor’ in Gaelic, had a special place in Gaelic tradition and no doubt we shall return to it in future editions of this blog.
This blog was written by Inverness-based writer, broadcaster and storyteller Roddy (Ruairidh) Maclean, whose work highlights the connections between the Gaelic language and Scotland’s environment.
Scotland's Nature 
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