Jane: Is this what wool looks like when we get it straight off the sheep?

Children: No

Jane: No. This is all beautifully clean. They would have to do a lot of work to get all the dirt out. Remember they didn't have any soap, so they used a plant called soapwort, to make a sort of soap-suddy feeling to the water. And they would wash the sheep's fleece in the soapwort in the water, get all the filthy dirt out where the sheep's been rolling in the grass and the dirt, and then they'd comb it with their bone combs, and then gradually it would start to look much pleasanter.

We're going to start with that colour, and then later on we're going to add some little details of the actual colours that were found on the real masks. I mean
look at what I'm wearing, this would be made of plants. This is actually made of a plant called flax and woven into linen. But it was probably just a sort of dirty green colour. How would they change it to a dark brown?

Child: Dye it?

Jane: They'd dye it, with what? What would be around them that they could use to dye things with?

Child: Axe?

Jane: No.

Another child: Flowers?

Jane: Flowers, plants, that's right. They'd gather plants that they knew would change into different colours, and that's how they'd dye the sheep's wool as well, by boiling plants up in the water over the fire. So this is what you're going to do. I'm going to put on everybody's table a lump of sheep's wool. This is to share at your table. And I'm going to watch to see if each person can just take off patiently a little piece. All right, so that's our first job. Then what you're going to do is hold that little piece in your fist, not too tightly, because if I scrumple it together, the little hooks will grab on, and they make it all stick together, just gently in your hand, and a little piece of fleece should just stick out like a little flame of a candle. And you take hold of that little flame with finger and thumb and take the little flame off.