Hi Daniel,
Perhaps "true black" was difficult to achieve in the Middle
Ages, by using plant dyes. Nevertheless, certain animals
do have furs that we even today characterize as "black"
(and not brown or blue), and we know that it is
appropriate, to distinguish, say, a black dog from a brown
one.

There are also black sheep, which they probably had then too;
hence they could have had black wool garments.

The mystery really is, why they used the same name for
black and blue, which we find so easy to distinguish today.

In heraldry, dating from the same centuries that the
sagas were written, they had seven heraldic colors
(argent, gold, gules, azure, sable, vert and purple),
and they posessed the technology (Paints/tinctures/materials)
to represent these colors on shields and on tapestries
(weaving/embroidry). Feathers and fur were also used,
of which there are both the brown/black as well as the
blue/black variety.

It is funny that in Norway "Blakken" is the name of a
light-colored horse, whereas an Englishman would be
inclined to think it referred to a "black" horse.
(bleik/bleak is also pale: "Hví ertu svo bleikr en
stundum svartur sem jörð. Er eigi það að þú viljir
svíkja mig?")

In Hrafnkell's saga, and in other sagas too, it
appears as if Hrafnkell is quite conscious in putting
on black clothes on his "payback" day. To me it seems
a little bit like in the cowboy movies, where the hero
often wears quite fancy clothes, often black. Which
may be fiction. But the Hells Angels have taken up
the custom too. In astrology Black is the colour of
Saturn.


Best regards
xigung

--- In norse_course@yahoogroups.com, Daniel Bray <dbray@...> wrote:
> Heill, Gerald,
>
> It's quite common that different languages have different ideas about
> colour. Irish, for instance, uses 'glas' for both green and blue -
there
> is no distinction between the two - at least not in the language.
>
> 'Blár' is both blue and blue-black, whereas 'svartr' covers dark brown
> and brown-black, thus 'blár' can be applied to ravens, but I think in
> clothing would cover something like navy blue to woad blue (a very
> common blue dye of the time). Truly black clothing I believe was very
> rare to non-existent in the Middle Ages.
>
> Gerald Mcharg wrote:
>
> > Good evening all
> >
> > Will you pardon me if I don't submit my translation this time? I've
> > done it in pen and ink (biro, really) but I find it's a long
> > mechanical process putting it on computer at a time when I'm in the
> > process of translating Egil's Saga - I've got half of it done and
it's
> > very exciting.
> > However, bleary-eyed as I am from just finishing Chapter 54, It's
very
> > refreshing to read other people's Hrafnkels and their observations on
> > the blue/back dress code. The first reference I came across to blue
> > being black was second hand. It's mentioned as a foot note in 'the
> > Long Ships', a novel by Frans G.Bengtsson, translated from the
Swedish
> > by Michael Meyer in 1955, I think. Here it is mentioned that negroes
> > were referred to by the vikings as 'blue men'.
> > From my own observations, I've noticed that the colour of persons
with
> > the very blackest of skins and the hair of some white people which is
> > of the deepest black colour, can in some circumstances, by a trick
> > of light, appear blue. Whether this applies to clothes or not, I
don't
> > know. Is there anyone in the field of optics who could shed some
light
> > on this?
> > In the Iliad and other works in AncientGreek, the word 'glaukos' can
> > be construed as 'grey' or 'blue', so the matter of colour confusion
> > isn.t restricted to the northern world
> > Cheers
> > Jed
> >
>
> Kveðja,
> --
>
> Daniel Bray
>