Use of lichens for dyeing
By far the most important use of lichens in Scotland was for dyeing, first as a cottage industry and later on a commercial scale. The lichens were scraped off the rocks using metal hoops, spoons and, in the poorer districts, seashells. Here is an account of lichen dyeing from Shetland records:
'My aunt was the one for making dyed yarn. I mind seeing her work with yon scrottyie, yon grey lichen you scrape from the stanes. She made up a brawly thick gruel, ye ken, and had it boiling abun the fire in a muckle three-taed kettle, with layers of yarn packed between. A few hanks came out soon and the rest she'd leave a while longer to get a darker shade. She'd knit her stockings striped in different shades of brown'.
As late as the 1950s, black, three-legged iron pots used for boiling lichens could be seen outside many crofts in the Hebrides. The browns and fawns of Harris tweed were produced from a closely-related group of lichens called crottle. The last of a long line of commercial dyers and hand weavers of this cloth on Harris ceased production in 1997.
The other main lichen dye produced in Scotland and, exported all over Britain, was orchil or cudbear, which gave a coveted purple or red. Its commercial value was so great that a factory producing this household dye was set up in Glasgow covering 17 acres and processing 250 tons of lichen each year. Gathering the lichen provided considerable employment in the Highlands. This gave rise to the Scottish saying:
‘Cattle on the hills, Gold on the stones.'