indigo [was Re: [Sca-cooks] Puritans, was: Canadian Friends]

[Volker Bach]

XvLoverCrimvX at aol.com schrieb:
>
> Isn't Woad the blue stuff the Scottish berserkers put on their face to make
> thiem hallucinate and become more aggressive in battle?
>
> Misha
> Braveheart fan :)

I think that might have come across a little
garbled :-)

Woad is a plant whose primary use is being blue.
You can use it to paint yourselves, as is widely
believed the Picts and Celts of Britain did in
pre-Roman and Roman times. (When I get my hands on
that nifty book on dyestuffs that's on special
offer round the corner where I work I'll know a
lot more :-))

Berserkers (I found this rendered berserkr and
bjarsarki and believe the difference to be
dialect, though my only old Germanic language is
Old English - anyone read Norse?) were a group of
warriorts in Norse culture distinguished by their
ferocity and reputed to have a variety of
miraculous or magical powers, depending on your
source. The historical reality may well be some
kind of battle-frenzy similar to what some Irish
epics describe, in which they attacked regardless
of danger to life and limb, which is a really
demoralising thing to face. As an aside, some of
the (long post-Viking) Lewis chessmen are biting
their shield rims, just like berserkers are
supposed to have done. (Oblibatory Food Content -
how could you render that experience pleasing in a
purely gustatory sense? The fighting faction might
appreciate the idea.)

I will not go into the bear-shirt/bare-shirt
controversy :-)

What some people believed made berserkers go
berserk is toadstool mushrooms (the variety that's
red with white spots). I'm not really sold on the
idea, though I can see some of them doing this.

And if you really wanted to you could use the
Lewis chessmen as a justification for depicting
'legacy berserkers' in late 13th century Scotland
- what's a century or two to Hollywood :-)

Giano

(who really *likes* Braveheart - one of the best
fantasy movies I ever saw)