But that is not what Rogers found and the fact that it is what makes it
interesting. Looking at her graph, she found nearly 75% of her samples
from the Norse textiles (found in Norway and Denmark) to have been dyed
with woad, compared with only 20% in England and less than 5% in
Ireland.

This chemical evidence seems to confirm what can be inferred from both
the literature (not only the Sagas, but other poems and prose records
as well) where blue is mentioned more often than other colours and from
anecdotal evidence, such Irish epitaphs that refer to the Norse with a
word that translates "the blue-greens". The Norse did seem to have a
marked preference for shades of blue.

As I said, blue more frequently than red, and when red is mentioned, it
is an indicator of either wealth, status, or someone putting on airs.
Now this, of course, maybe merely a literary device (akin to our referring to a good guy as a "white hat"), but it also seems to be born
out by the archeological evidence where red markers (most often madder)
are more frequently found in high status graves like that of the
Oseberg Queen.

On the other hand, Rogers found red markers most frequently in English
samples from the same era: in more than 60% of her tested samples. Of
course, madder can be grown in England, or easily imported from France.
The availability of the dye stuff may have impacted where it was used.
This also begins to make one of the Norse descriptions of red:
"foreign-red" make more sense.

The truly surprising one (for me) was extraordinarily high number of
Irish textiles from that era that had chemical traces of the purple
lichen dyes (which can yield of a whole range of pinks, lavenders, and
purplish-shades, even fuchsia when its fresh).

For the record, Rogers identified indigotin, kermes (only on silks),
madder, bedstraw, purple lichen, weld, and a "Yellow-X" in her tests.

~ Wencenedl ~