They took the woad less traveled
Posted by Catherine Cartwright Jones on February 21, 2000 at 03:10:07:
In Reply to: Anyway, Why Doesn't Anyone Woad Themselves? posted by SeeSee on February 16, 2000 at 03:20:39:
I dug out some passible woad info....
for more, go to "The Woad Plant and its Dye" Oxford University Press,
London, 1930, Jamieson B Hurry ....
You have to grind the leages to a pulp, then you knead and roll that.
You form it into balls, two handfulls each, and dry those for a few
weeks. Then powder the dried balls. Then you pile that on a stone
floor, ) 2 or 3 feet deep ... and keep it damp for 9 weeks until it
ferments and rots. That will get you a dark clay-like substance
.....1/9 the volume of the original pile of leaves.
Apply the goop to the skin, using alum or potash as a mordant,
keep it on, and get as hot and sweatty as possible for several hours
. When the guck comes off, the color won't show at first, but will
appear as it comes in contact with oxygen. It never really loses the
rot smell.
I think if henna had grown in England in 55 BCE, Julius Caesar would
have battled red rather than blue dudes.