One of the lovely things about having a small child is having an excuse to rediscover all the books I loved when I was a child. Some of my favourites were the Brambly Hedge stories by Jill Barklem, a beautiful mixture of homeliness, seasons and adventure, all gorgeously illustrated.
I came to read ‘The High Hills’ again, and found that natural dyes are a key part of the story (and I want a studio like the weavers of Brambly Hedge!) Flax and Lily make blankets for the voles but can’t match the yellow of the old blankets, as they have run out of Grandpa Blackthorn’s lichen. Wilfred helps to take the blankets to the voles, goes on an adventure in search of gold, and finds the rare lichen without realising it.
I looked through my dye books and discovered that lichens were traditionally used for dyeing. Ethel M. Mairet, who wrote ‘Vegetable Dyes: A Book of Recipes and Information Useful to the Dyer’ in 1916, devoted a whole chapter to lichen dyes, and her lists suggest that lichens were particularly used in Scotland, Ireland and Scandinavia. Lichens are slow growing and many are now protected, so they are not frequently used now.
Jill Barklem was known for researching the details of her stories and lived in Epping for most of her life, so I wonder whether she was thinking of a specific lichen when she wrote the book. None of the lichens listed in Mairet’s book are an obvious match. Caloplaca flavescens is a common lichen that could plausibly look like gold to Wilfred, and it’s found in the area where Barklem lived, but I can’t find a reference to it being used as a natural dye. I haven’t found a definitive answer, I wonder whether anyone else has researched it or whether Barklem left any notes for her books that might give clues.