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Bat's Blood Ink
2 part dragons blood resin
1/2 part Myrhh resin
2 drops Cinnamon oil
2 drops Indigo color
1/2 part Gum Arabic
12 parts Alcohol
Grind resins and steep in alcohol until they are
dissolved. Add Cinnamon oil, Indigo, and ground Gum Arabic. Filter
and bottle.
Dove's Blood Ink
1 part Dragon's blood resin
1 part Gum Arabic
2 drops Cinnamon Oil
2 drops Rose Oil
2 drops Bay Oil
Grind resins and steep in alcohol until dissolved.
Add oils and ground Gum Arabic. Filter and bottle.
Dragon's Blood Ink
1 part Dragon's blood resin
1 part Gum Arabic
15 parts alcohol
Grind resin and steep in alcohol until dissolved.
Add ground Gum Arabic, filter and bottle.
Greater Celandine root makes a powerful red/orange ink
The juice of beets makes a fine red ink.
Ground Pokeberries makes a fine Purple ink.
Lemon Juice, or milk both can be used for the
making of invisible inks.
Home Made Ink Recipe
Published in 1805:
"Brown...boiled-down walnut or butternut hulls that have been
mashed first. Add vinegar and salt to boiling water to 'set'. Black...add
indigo or lampblack (soot). Blue...powdered Indigo. 2 parts, 1 part
madder, 1
part bran. Mix with water, let stand then strain it well.
1.Taken from the twelfth century manual On Divers
Arts by monk/scribe, Theophilus: "When you are going to make
ink, cut some pieces of [haw]thorn wood in April or May, before
they grow blossoms or leaves. Make little bundles of them and let
them lie in the shade for two, three, or four weeks, until they
are dried out a little. Then you should have wooden mallets with
which you should pound the thorn on another hard piece of wood,
until you have completely removed the bark. Put this immediately
into a barrel full of water. Fill two, three, four or five barrels
with bark and water and so let them stand for eight days, until
the water absorbs all the sap of the bark into itself. Next, pour
this water into a very clean pan or cauldron, put fire under it
and boil it. From time to time also put some of the bark itself
into the pan, so that if any of the sap has remained in it, it will
be boiled out. After boiling it a little, take out the bark and
again put some more in. After this is done, boil the remaining water
down to a third, take it out of that pan and put it into a smaller
one. Boil it until it grows black and is beginning to thicken, being
absolutely careful not to add any water except that which is mixed
with the sap. When you see it begin to thicken, add a third part
of pure wine, put it into two or three new pots, and continue boiling
until you see that it forms a sort of skin on top.
Then take the pots off the fire and put them in
the sun until the black ink purges itself from the red dregs. Next,
take some small, carefully sewn parchment bags with bladders inside,
pour the pure ink into them, and hang them in the sun until [the
ink is] completely dry. Whenever you want, take some of the dry
material, temper it with wine over the fire, add a little green
vitriol [iron sulphate] and write. If it happens through carelessness
that the ink is not black enough, take a piece of iron a finger
thick, put it into the fire, let it get red-hot, and immediately
throw it into the ink."
For those who prefer a more technical explanation:
The ink would be composed mostly of iron tannate or gallate. The
acids are extracted from the partially decomposed bark and, after
drying for storage, are freshly mixed for use with wine and green
vitriol. The ink could be made blacker by adding iron or iron oxide
directly. It was commonly added as metallic filings, but the method
of quenching an iron rod as recommended by Theophilus will also
work, as it will produce a reactive oxide scale.
2.A traditional ink recipe, this one is much simpler.
Take a quantity of albumen [egg white] and mix thoroughly with the
soot. Then add honey and mix into a smooth paste. The ink is then
ready to use.
3.Another traditional ink recipe. Gather some "lawyer's
wig" mushrooms (Corprinus comatus) and place in a glazed pot
or small cauldron. Leave somewhere warm for several days to allow
the mushrooms to liquefy. Pour off the liquid and either use it
as it is or boil until it is about half its original volume for
a blacker ink. Note: this ink is less permanent than some of the
others, but is easy to produce.
There were many other types of ink in use at the
time, many of them obtained by suspending black pigments in some
other medium (e.g. recipe 2). Black pigments included charcoal and
bone-black (obtained by burning bone in the absence of oxygen).
Compounds of gallic acid were also used as the basis for many black
inks, which worked by oxidizing the surface of the vellum. If you
are using a modern ink, beware of pure Indian ink -- this is far
blacker than most of the early medieval inks. If you do use Indian
ink, add a quantity of red or brown ink to it before writing.
In Anglo-Saxon England liquid ink was kept in inkwells
made of horn.
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