Magical Inks For Illumination

The oldest inks are Egyptian, around 4500 years old; there are also ink samples from China that are not much younger. Stones such as malachite, lapis lazuli, red and yellow ochre, and carbon were ground to powder and mixed with gum resins. They were formed into small cakes to dry and then wet down with a brush to adhere to the papyrus, paper, wood, stone wall, or other surface. One recipe for Egyptian red ink consists of red poppy petals, artichoke juice, ground acacia seeds, red ocher, unslaked lime, gun, and rainwater. Unfortunately, we don't have the proportions....does anyone want to try? This particular ink was associated with Set, and used to ward off evil.

The easiest ink color to make is, of course, black. The simplest ink is lampblack, which can be made in your kitchen without trouble. You'll need beeswax or tallow candles, not modern stearin ones. Just hold a spoon in the flame for about a minute, and you'll find it to be covered with a sticky black substance. Scrape it off with another spoon and repeat until you have a heap of it. This may take a while, so it may be best to have several people working on the project at once. You'll need to add gum arabic in the same proportion, and grind them together until they are well mixed. Add water little by little until it's the consistency of thick black ink, and then bottle and use. If you can't get gum arabic and need ink in a hurry, some traditional recipes substitute egg white and honey instead. Obviously you can alter the magical nature of this ink by what sort of oil you rub on your candle, or by burning some special incense and using that for your smoke.

Another traditional black ink, much prized in medieval Italy, was "onigrum optimum" or vine black. It was made from special charcoal that had to be made from the young shoots of grapevines, ground fine, mixed with gum, and diluted with water. You can add a drop or two of honey to give a better consistency. Yet another unusual black ink can be made from the Shaggy Ink Cap mushroom; just pick them, leave them in a bowl for a week to degrade, and boil the resulting liquid down until it is of an inky consistency.

Another black ink can be made with oak gall and iron. Oak galls are the tannin-rich knobs on the branches of oak trees. They may take some careful looking to find and cut off. Put a handful of galls into a jar of water, and add a handful of rusty nails for the iron. Let it sit in the sun, perhaps a window, and eventually it will blacken into ink. There may be a layer of water on the top, which you should siphon off with an eye-dropper, and then strain the ink to remove the bits and nails.

For redder all-natural inks, you can use berry juice (especially pokeberry), beet juice, or grape juice. Thicken them with gum arabic if they seem too thin. You can make ink from dragon's blood, but make sure you get the real thing; real dragon's blood is hard to come by and much of what passes for it these days is fake.

Invisible ink can be made a variety of different ways. Writing with sal ammoniac will make words that can only be read with the aid of a candle flame heating the paper. Lemon juice will do the same, but the best is alum diluted with water into a thick inky paint. This can only be read by steeping the paper in clear water, which few will think to do.