Vermilion & Dragon's Blood

It's St George's Day and dragons come to mind. In 1668 dragons we're alive and well, terrorising the villagers of Saffron Walden in Essex, England. There was even a pamphlet published called The Flying Serpent or Strange News out of Essex. Those villagers may have known of the paint pigment dragon's blood (yes I've been reading the Secret Lives of Colour again), a rich purply red. It was obtained in an interesting way and involved not only dragons but elephants and came from India. Dragons lurked up trees and pounced on elephants. Sometimes the elephant was killed, sometimes the dragon. Occasionally they killed each other and result was that rich purply red! Actually trees are involved and the pigment came from wound red resin.
To obtain Vermilion involved alchemy, and Mercury and sulphur. It's a colour best associated with the walls of Pompeii and the vibrant red in Medieval paintings. The latter artists sealed the paint with a delightful mixture of earwax and egg yolks.
Happily you can see both colours here without recourse to dragons or magic or even earwax.
Yes it's been a long, damp, day! This tree is magnificent though and was green when we first started the circuit. It's now glowing. We still went out for a yomp.