Shepherd Check
This is probably the oldest check we possess. To make it originally, no dye would be required, since the wool from white and black sheep could be used. In this case, the "white" would be "natural" and the black would be anything from a brown to the very dark colour of the fleece of a "black" sheep. Many of the old weavers preferred the so-called black of nature to that produced by the dyers, since black is the most fugutive of all their dyes: a fact that has accounted in the past for many a mistake in describing the sett of a tartan from ancient material. The traditional black dyes of the Highlands were made from alder-bark, dock-root and the root of the water-flag.
