On Vegetable Dyes and Knitting Patterns

Over the past few weeks, I've been spending most days in the Cambridge University Library, befriending librarians and further developing my theory regarding Robin Hood's possibly crypto-Jewish origins. Suffice it to say that I've made a few interesting discoveries, and I hope to share them soon.

One morning this week, I mentioned to a librarian, "research, for me, is like going down a rabbit hole, and at some point saying, 'oh look, there's a rabbit!'"

As this newsletter functions as a sort of research journal for me, I would like to share a "squirrel" I accidentally noticed while I was looking for something else entirely.

In the November 1928 issue of Chambers's Journal, there is a two page article on the topic of "Scottish Vegetable Dyes" by a Margaret Sandison.

Until the discovery of aniline dyes during the second half of last century, practically all dyeing was done with natural organic dyes which were mainly of vegetable origin. The trade in these dye-stuffs was world-wide. The best were imported into Britain to take the place of the native dye-plants, which were usually less convenient and effective than their foreign competitors. In England the use of the native dye-plants was practically discontinued, and all local tradition of their use in the once flourishing village industries has been lost. Owing to different local conditions, Scottish vegetable dyes are still used in the Highlands and Islands in the various home industries of the crofters.

Less than a hundred years ago native dye-plants were widely used by Scottish peasants, presumably because they were too poor to buy the foreign dye-stuffs which had long been popular in England. In later years the influence of the various charitable organisations which have interested themselves in the marketing of home-spun tweed has often been exercised in favour of the native dyes, when their use is practicable. The sentimental appeal of Scottish dye-plants and the fastness of colour which vegetable dyes can give are known to be attractive to the very special class which purchases the tweeds. In many districts some good dye-plants are sufficiently abundant to be gathered easily, and the conveniences of aniline dye-packets and foreign vegetable dyes are less tempting to the home-worker.

Beyond her list of lichens and other plants they used, I really enjoyed her small additions of local color which she sprinkled throughout the piece.

It occasionally happens that an enterprising worker will start a fashion in her district for a particular dye-plant which had been forgotten. A few old people are left who have known a larger range of vegetable dyes in their youth, and can partially remember the lichens which, after a long process of fermentation, furnished a variety of blue, purple, and red shades.

It is interesting that she considered mordants like alum to be good and cheap, which was not the reality in Italy in the 15th century for example.

With the exception of the lichens, most of the Scottish dye-plants require a mordant, or fixing agent, to fasten the dye on to the wool. Copperas and alum are good and cheap mordants which have been known and used for ages.

She used the term "sadden" to describe dyeing clothing black for the purposes of bereavement and mourning. At some point, I shall endeavor to write a much more complete history of black clothing, and will reference this paragraph.

About sixty years ago, in some country districts, the first intimation that the local shopkeeper received of a death in the neighbourhood was a request for a few pence worth of logwood and copperas wherewith to 'sadden' the bereaved family's clothes. At the same period, such primitive substitutes for copperas as pounded bog-iron ore, or black peat earth impregnated with iron-ore, were used for dyeing black with local plants, and the exotic copperas and logwood were possibly still regarded as a luxury, necessitated by the sad urgency of the case.

When she writes "[t]he all but universally used agent was of an insanitary character", she means to say "urine".

The chemicals used for releasing the dye from the vegetables or for modifying its colour were undoubtedly also very simple. The all but universally used agent was of an insanitary character, and ammonia is the modern substitute.

And then we come to the topic of Fair Isle, known for their distinctive multi-colored knitting pattern and their secretive dyeing practices. I could not read this line without thinking about the ancient wine from the island of Lesbos which famously tasted like it had seawater added.

Salt was often put in the rinsing water when the wool had been dyed blue, in order to make the colour faster, and it is rumoured that the Fair Isle dyers used sea-water.

While we began the piece with the Scottish necessity for growing their own dyes as opposed to importing them from abroad, we see a very different perspective with regard to Fair Isle practice of maintaining their secrecy in their unique dyeing practice. The author understood that the traditions must be preserved to allow them to continue their cultural heritage.

Of special interest are the vegetable dyes of Fair Isle, a small island lying between the Orkneys and the mainland of Shetland. The dyeing done here is said to be absolutely fast, even withstanding the ordeal of sea-water, and the islanders, who are very clannish, make a great mystery of their materials and methods. If they have a secret they certainly do well to preserve it, for its reputation should be a continual source of income to them as long as they profess to do their own dyeing. About fifty years ago, however, when Mr Tudor visited Fair Isle, the islanders were less reticent than they are today. In his Orkneys and Shetland. he gives a list of eight dyes which were then in use on the island—viz. indigo [sic*], cudbear, potentilla tormentilla, red bearberry, marigold, and the lichens saxatilis, paretinus, and omphaloides. As these are all well known, any secret must lie in the methods followed.
(emphasis added, see note at bottom)

And then came a historical note that I had no idea and cannot yet corroborate if this is fact or popular legend.

The wreck of an Armada ship on Fair Isle resulted in the islanders being taught their famous patterned knitting by the Spaniards; possibly they were also taught some dyeing secret of peculiar worth.

The fact that there was a shipwrecked Spanish Armada called El Gran Grifón on 27 September 1588 is well-known. Regarding the dyes, we know that the Spanish during that period did transport the cochineal dye they looted from Mexico, but I don't know if the sailors would have been able to add any insight to the local dyeing or knitting practices.

A fairly savage diary entry from one of the Spanish crew, which called them "savages":

They get wool from the sheep for their clothes. They are very dirty people. They are not Christian but not quite heretics either. Their minister comes from an island to preach to them once a year. They do not like this but cannot do anything about it. It is a shame.

The question is, did the Spanish teach the islanders how to create their unique knitting or is that also simply conjecture? The (archived) website of the Shetland Museums Service seems to think it highly unlikely, but a nice "romantic notion".

Similarly, there is a romantic notion (widely accepted till this day) that these newly-wrecked, hard-bitten Spanish campaigners took time out from their starvation and fatigue to teach the islanders the two-stranded knitting technique Fair Isle is now so famous for, which again seems highly unlikely.

But John Tudor, who wrote the 1883 book that Margaret Sandison quoted, differs.

One thing , undoubtedly, the Spaniards¹ bestowed on their hosts, and that is the art of knitting the brilliantly variegated hosiery, for the manufactory of which the island has long been noted.

And the footnote read:

¹Many of the patterns are said to be of Moorish origin, and to be identical with what are, to the present day, worn in the south of Spain by the fishermen.

Perhaps the truth lies somewhere in the middle.

It is much more plausible to suggest that the famed Fair Isle patterns could simply have been a local interpretation of the clothing the islanders saw the shipwrecked sailors wearing.

*I'm nearly certain that they were growing woad and not indigo. It was translation from the local word lit. See Tudor's The Orkneys and Shetland (1883) page 439.

The women, who are not unsophisticated in their prices, dye their own worsted, and the lit (indigo) pot is to be found in every house. Korkeleit, or purple, used to be obtained from Lichen Tartareus scraped off the rocks, as was formerly done in Foula, whence the materials for the dye, made up into balls , were largely exported to the other islands. At the present day the same colour is obtained from cudbear.