Arthur’s Seat forum 1 room
Image by Branwen
Arthur’s Seat

Arthur's Seat, Edinburgh: The Slidey Stone

close
more_vert
Branwen B
Branwen Dec 10, 2009 23:49:53
Replying to dodge one

Glastum, Woad and Isatis tinctoria are all the same plant in the end.

Woad got the common name of glastum from the writers that made the mistake of thinking the woad plant that makes good cloth dye also made the body paint or tattoos. They gave woad the name the romans gave to the colour of celtic body paint/tattoos and blue green glass in more recent times.

Glastrum of the romans, and glas of the celts mean blue/green, not the true blue colour you get with woad. Woad is a violet blue if you look here you can see the colours: http://www.boutique.bleu-de-lectoure.com/catalog/popup_image.php?pID=29. Copper and iron both make good blue green pigments though. You can change the colour in various ways, but the chap on that first site seems to have tried it all and found it rubbish for body paint.

I've thought the same myself, about the iron for tattoos. I'm sure one of the ancient sources says the picts tattooed themselves with hot iron, which some people took to mean they branded themselves, but which I took to mean something to do with the iron pigment tattoo process.

Woad is an astringent, so it might have been used in preparation.

Woad and bear fat makes a silvery body paint which confuses hunting and hunted animals alike according to one author, and was used by hunters. Got me thinking... Glas for the celts also has a another meaning of grey or clear. So maybe it meant invisible, to those hunters, masking their scent and hiding them.

Saw this about woad as a cancer preventative...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4783831.stm

All gets you thinking huh? Or do I just wander off topic annoyingly?

D dodge one
dodge one Dec 11, 2009 00:12:44
Replying to Branwen

No not at all{the wandering off topic}...I saw bits of what your describing in my look see around too. It's all an interesting look at how folks did things in our culture, way back when.
I don't think it's too outside the bounds of disscussion around here. And so what if it is anyway? Will the internet derail? {chucklin'}
So what is the blue stuff people are rubbing on themselves at these modern festivals. Cosmetics?
D1

M moss
moss Dec 11, 2009 08:36:18
Replying to Branwen

I've always been sceptical about woad Branwen, its a difficult dye to extract and how come they managed to grow it up in the wilds of Scotland as well?..
Ovid called us 'virides Brittannos' and for Pliny 'glastum' is the name, and apparently you can get blue, black or green from the dye, I'd like to know how they reduced all these dyes into a pigment form to use....
Always used to think that Glastonbury was so called because of the woad grown round there (woad likes growing on acidic peat and theres plenty around Glastonbury ).. but one of the stories goes that it was a 'Glasteing', a monk from the North chasing a sow to Glastonbury and he found her suckling her piglets under an apple tree next to the old church and he settled there.....