SC - Re: woad OT

[Decker, Terry D.]

>To the best of my research, the hallucinagenic properties of woad are
>mythical, tho I haven't tried it internally, I have handled it.  Apparently
>it
>is one of those things where nobody really believed that celts would strip
>neckid and go into battle, so the woad tatoos obviously had to either be the
>cause of their berserking, or numb the skin.
>but then again maybe I am just to bonkers to have noticed a slight slip in my
>attachment to reality... ;)
>-brid 

No Celt in his right mind wants dirty cloth jammed into a wound, and
since it is heroic to eschew armor, running around in the all together
makes a certain amount of sense.  The woad was probably to make them
look more fearsome (considering how silly a naked man can look), but it
has some antiseptic properties which are useful on survivable wounds.  

If I remember Cuchulain's tale aright, the Gaelic term for berserking is
galt.

Bear
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