Poisonous Writing

Last time I looked at the rather unsavoury ingredients once used in everyday trades. A visit to the British Library in London gave me the opportunity to see some of the illuminated manuscripts of yesteryear. Despite the age of these documents the colours remain quite wonderfully preserved and got me wondering about the recipes to produce the different colours.

It must be said the recipe very much depended upon what was available at the time and thus changed depending upon where the monks and their quill pens were based. I admit I have chosen the worst possible blend in each case, although even the least harmful could never be described as palatable.

RED
In nature red is a warning colour, used by animals to suggest toxicity. When it comes to red ink the same could be said regarding some of the ingredients. Lac is derived from the excretions of certain insects, gathered from the bark of the tree and treated to produce the red colour. It is the same substance which produces shellac. In Britain we were more likely to have used red lead, not exactly the safest of products, or vermilion, found in nature as cinnabar and known to chemists as mercury sulphide.

YELLOW
Saffron will produce a delightful yellow pigment but, pound for pound, the most expensive foodstuff on the planet would be unlikely to be wasted making yellow. Again a mineral solution proved more cost-effective, with limonite being the optimum choice but could not be guaranteed to produce the same shade of yellow every time. This was not the case with orpiment, which was used until the nineteenth century but did have a downside in being incompatible with other pigment bases and, worse still, being toxic in the extreme – a clue found in the chemical name of arsenic sulphide.

GREEN
At last based on something most of us will have heard of. Verdigris is the coating which forms on the surface of copper over time. It will occur naturally, although boiling copper plates in vinegar accelerates the process. Verdigris is not always the same compound, there are several which are known as such, but all have one thing in common, the element copper making them extremely toxic.

BLUE
Of course the classic is woad, the plant which Britons once used to paint themselves blue. At last a plant which may actually have beneficial properties, one thought to offer some prevention against cancer. On the minus side the root is used in Chinese herbal medicine and long-term use can do damage to the kidneys. Perhaps this explains why blue pens have always been the most popular?

WHITE
Not exactly a common colour in illuminated manuscripts but certainly a necessary one. Chalk was the obvious ingredient but that did only sit in suspension and will only prove a temporary solution. Most often the ominously-sounding white lead was used. Correctly lead carbonate was created by popping lead sheets in vinegar to corrode them, then covering the result in dung to lock in the carbon dioxide and complete the process. Such white lead paint was used on the wooden hulls of Royal Navy vessels to prevent infestations of marine worms. While the use of the colour is not directly toxic, the process required to achieve this is undoubtedly so.

BLACK
Usually carbon as a result of burning, such as lampblack, charcoal, bone, etc would prove difficult to use. Most often the black pigment was created by boiling iron in vinegar, the result then mixed with an extract from oak apples or galls.

GOLD
Here the monks used powdered gold which was mixed with egg .

SILVER
Exactly the same as gold, the precious metal was reduced to a powder and mixed with egg. Sometimes tin replaced silver for the same result.

As I researched and wrote this I was reminded of those irritants at school who would lick the (pointed) end of their pencil before writing. They would not have lasted long as medieval monks.

Right Place at the Right Time

This week has seen the final touches applied to both North Devon Place Names and South Devon Place Names, while Dorset Place Names will also be printed and packed up before the end of this week. As the end of the calendar year approaches so does the deadlines to finish the final two books for which I have contracts.

Next week I shall be delivering the three finished manuscripts and illustrations, while continuing on to Somerset to spend a couple of days seeking out 40 or 50 decent illustrations and those snippets and anecdotal gems which make a book out of what would otherwise be a dictionary of place names.

I have also been invited to speak at another three venues, a local history group in Staffordshire in March, a group of metal detectorists at the beginning of February, and I am to be on the list for the 14th Annual Literary Festival in Wellington, Shropshire in October of next year.

This week I also learned, albeit probably later than most authors, that Amazon have introduced Kindle Stores, a way for authors to list their work digitally. The eBook can then be uploaded on payment of an agreed amount - not all have to be books, of course, articles, poems, songs, music, jokes, even money-saving tips. Rest assured I shall be investigating the potential here and reporting back for like all authors I have a number of items which I consider worthy of publication but have yet to find the right niche.

Often that is the case, not that the piece is substandard but is being offered to the wrong place and/or at the wrong time. Some years ago I had had a book proposal accepted, contracts signed, written and page proofs had even been printed and edited. It was when we were clearing up the final queries that something interesting came to light. Among the paperwork for the book proposal I found a letter of mine offering the idea for that book to the same publisher. Pinned to the back was a polite rejection of the idea, dated nine months before the idea was accepted. Even more surprising the letter came from the same person working at the same company. Which proves if you are satisfied you cannot improve upon the piece and still keep receiving rejections no matter how well you tailor your writing to suit the publication or publisher, it still has to be looked at by the right person at the right time.