Got a Real World Weapons or Armour Question? Mk XII

[warty goblin]

The ancients used red and indigo much of the time because those were the only bright, color-fast dyes. Black would fade quickly except when they used natural black wool or horsehair.

My Mom does a good amount of natural dying, so I have some secondhand knowledge.

Indigo is indeed an excellent blue, as is woad. Both are, I think, fairly fast when put on wool. I know less about other fibers since we have sheep, not a cotton plantation.

The hulls of the North American Black Walnut produces a remarkable, and very colorfast dark, almost chocolaty brown. I don't know if the same holds true for European walnuts though.

It turns out that a sort of sickly yellow is very easy to obtain, many tree barks produce this color.

Tragically it is impossible to dye with beets. They can make it look like you're peeing pure blood, but they don't stick to wool.

IIRC my Mom's preferred red dye is cochineal, which is a sort of scabrous insect that lives on cacti. I don't know if it's available in the old world, but it produces a hell of a nice red.


Black wool is not, to the modern eye, particularly black. Oh a lamb with a black fleece looks like midnight made into cuteness incarnate to be sure. But after a summer and winter in the sun and weather, there's some definite bleaching goes on. Still dark, but not the inky black we think of as black dyed cloth.