Foraging through Folklore

Loud actions and unspoken Nettles

Ella Leith

Dragged out on winter walks as a kid, whenever I complained of cold my dad would turn to me, a twinkle in his eye, and offer to throw me into a patch of Nettles (Urtica dioica). “That’ll warm you right up!” he’d say, advancing with open arms, and I’d shriek with gleeful horror and race off. It worked, too— running away from a Nettle bath was at least as warming as the burning sensation of the stings themselves, just as I suspect that the effectiveness of Dock leaves (Rumex obtusifolius) as a remedy for Nettle stings is partly down to the distraction of hunting for them.

My dad never did follow through on his Nettle bath threat, but ‘nettling’ or ‘nettle tickling’ has a long history as a playful punishment, usually between children. In the Midlands each year on 29 th May, Peter Opie observed children ‘of about nine or ten years old running after one of their playmates and thrashing the urchin's bare knees with stinging nettles’, a phenomenon he attributed to the fact that ‘three hundred and two years ago a king climbed up an oak tree’ (1954:149). This is because 29 th May was known as Oak and Nettle Day; the day ascribed to honouring Charles II’s escape from the Roundheads by hiding in an Oak tree (Quercus robur). Failure to honour Oak and Nettle Day was once a punishable offence. A nineteenth-century observer describes it thus:

.The rising generation sally out in the morning, their caps and buttonholes adorned with sprigs of oak. They also provide themselves with a bunch of nettles. They request all persons whom they meet with “to show your oak.”...Supposing they are unprovided with the necessary sprig or leaf their face, neck, and hands are well “nettled”. When punishment has been bestowed for disloyalty, a slip of oak is presented to the offending party, who is thus provided with protection from the next gang of youths and lads they meet

(‘E.’, 1884:381)

The ritual had an ‘abrupt, authoritarian conclusion at twelve noon’ (Opie, 1954:149), so those with anti-royalist sympathies could consider taking a long lie-in that morning.

Nettles were not only used to punish republicanism; they were also employed to pique friends and lovers. In Cork, Ireland, Nettlemas was a byname for May Day, and on Nettlemas Night (30th April):

boys parade the streets with large bunches of nettles, stinging their playmates, and occasionally bestowing a sly touch upon strangers who come in their way. Young and merry maidens, too, not unfrequently avail themselves of the privilege to “sting” their lovers; and the laughter in the street is often echoed in the drawing-room.

(Hall and Hall, 1841:25)

May was the Nettle’s folklorically significant month: Sutherland (2020:4) recounts an Irish belief that ‘if you eat three meals containing nettles in May, ...you will not be sick for the rest of the year’, and that Nettles were believed to be ‘unfit to eat after the month of May due to the Devil using them to make a shirt’— although, as she notes, they are tougher and less palatable by late spring, so you probably don’t need that excuse.

The making of shirts from Nettles is not just the Devil’s purview, but a motif found in international folk-tale type 451, generically called The Brothers Who Were Turned into Birds (and retold here in Botanica Fabula). Depending on the version, three, six, seven, eleven or twelve brothers are turned into swans, ravens, geese, storks, ducks or peacocks; to lift the spell, their sister must make them shirts from Nettle, Thistledown (Onopordum spp.), Aster (A. spp), or Starflower (Borago officinalis or Lysimachia europaea). Nettles and Thistles can be painful to handle, making the sister’s task all the more arduous; moreover, it is often specified that she must collect the plants from a graveyard at midnight, placing her at risk of suspicion from which she cannot defend herself— the magic stipulates that she must maintain total silence until the shirts are completed:

And if a single word were to come from your mouth, all your work would be lost.

(The Six Swans, Germany)

It is just as she is about to be burnt as a witch that she at last manages to throw the shirts over her brothers and lift the enchantment— although one brother is left with a wing instead of an arm, since his shirt was unfinished.

Some people are a bit ambivalent about this tale with its mute, suffering heroine; as Langrish (2019) observes, ‘silent endurance for the sake of another makes modern readers uncomfortable. We want our heroines to be kick-ass, not passive.’ But, she asks,

How passive is this behaviour, really? Considering how many women are still carers of one sort or another, it’s worth asking ourselves if, discovering courage in determined, even obstinate endurance, fairy tales recognise something we have forgotten to value.

(ibid.)

Ayers (2020) calls it ‘a lovely metaphor pointing us toward the unexpected ways one can make a difference in the world, even without having a “voice” in the traditional sense’, and highlights that it is the traditionally feminine acts of spinning, weaving and sewing that are framed ‘not only [as] a heroic labour of love but the deed that ultimately rescues her brothers from their plight.’

Making cloth from Nettles is not merely the stuff of fairy tales; Nettle fabric dating from the Bronze Age has been found in Denmark, and Nettle cloth can be made in ‘a variety of textures, from silky and fine to coarse and thick’ (Srivastava and Rastogi, 2018:282). The etymology of ‘Nettle’ is suggestive of its use as a textile: some claim the word is derived from the Anglo-Saxon naedl (needle), but it is more likely to come from the Proto-Indo- European root *ned- (to bind or tie), along with netting, network and noose (etymonline.com), as its fibres have long been used to make cordage and fishing nets as well as cloth (Srivastava and Rastogi, 2018:282). It is eminently versatile, but often disparaged, as remarked on by Scots poet Thomas Campbell in a letter to an English acquaintance:

Your English prejudice perhaps, will exclaim, “is not the nettle a weed, if possible, more vile than even your Scottish thistle?” But be not nettled, my friend, at my praise of this useful weed. In Scotland I have eaten nettles; I have slept in nettle-sheets, and I have dined off a nettle-tablecloth

(1837:150)

As a once ubiquitous fabric, perhaps ‘the tales that tell of silenced princesses stinging their hands as they pick and spin nettles...have been remembered by people who knew that nettles could be made into fabric, but not exactly how’ (Close-Hainsworth, 2017).

Similarly, the vow of silence in the story of the Nettle shirts may allude to an aspect of plantlore linked to medicine. ‘Unspoken plants’— that is, plants gathered, prepared and used in total silence —were believed to retain a particular healing power; similarly, ‘unspoken water’ would be used for ritual purposes (Logan, 1833). Although the burden of silence was usually placed on the person doing the herb gathering, in some traditions the magic was more subject to chance— the gatherer could speak, but must not be spoken to. A story from Angus tells of a poorly local man, Geordie Tamson, who was prescribed Nettle kail (Nettles cooked as greens), which was to be made with unspoken Nettles collected at midnight (Gregor, 1884). Geordie’s friends went to the Red Kirkyard of Portlethen to collect the plants, but heard whispering from behind the church wall. Realising that they were about to be accosted by the brothers of a recently buried man, who were guarding his corpse against body-snatchers (‘resurrection folk’), and concerned that their labour would be ‘lost and the herb...useless as medicine’, they called out:

Dinna spyke [don’t speak], dinna spyke. ...We're nae resurrection fouk; we're fae Cairngrassie, come tae gaither unspoken nettles tae mak Geordie Tamson better. Dinna spyke then: for God's sake, dinna spyke, or ye’ll spilt a’ [spoil all].

(ibid:378)

With Nettles, then, actions speak louder than words. Indeed, Nettles themselves invite firm action, as Aesop tells us in his fable, The Boy and the Nettle:

A Boy, stung by a Nettle, ran home crying, to get his mother to blow on the hurt and kiss it. “Son," said the Boy’s mother, when she had comforted him, “the next time you come near a Nettle, grasp it firmly, and it will be as soft as silk.”

(1919:89)

Whatever you do, Aesop concludes, do it with all your might. To which I would add, don’t let perfectionism or the fear of failure stay your hand— your brother will be left with a wing for an arm, despite your best efforts, but at least he’s no longer a bird.

References

Aesop (1919), The Æsop for Children. Rand McNally and Company: Chicago

Ayers, R. (2020) ‘Five Retellings of “The Wild Swans” — A Fairy Tale for Our Current Moment’ Tor.com, 20/08/2020: www.tor.com [accessed 07/02/22]

Campbell, T. (1837) Letters from the South. H. Colburn: London

Close-Hainsworth, F. (2017) ‘Spinning a Tale: Spinning and Weaving in Myths and Legends’, blog for Folklore Thursday (22/06/17): folklorethursday.com/folklife [accessed 07/02/22]

‘E.’ (1884) ‘Notes and Queries: Oak and Nettle Day in Nottinghamshire’ in The Folk-Lore Journal, 2(1): 381-382

etymonline.com, Online Etymological Dictionary [accessed 07/02/22]

Gregor, G. (1884) ‘Notes and Queries: Unspoken Nettles’ in The Folk-Lore Journal, 2(1): 377-378

Hall, Mr. S.C. and Hall, Mrs. (1841) Ireland: Its Scenery, Character, etc. How and Parsons: London

Langrish, K. (2019) ‘Bold Sisters in Fairy Tale Families’, blog for Folklore Thursday (08/08/19): folklorethursday.com/folktales [accessed 01/02/22]

Logan, (1833) The Scotish Gaël, Or, Celtic Manners: As Preserved Among the Highlanders, Marsh, Capen and Lyon: Boston

Opie, P, (1954) England, the Great Undiscovered, in Folklore, 65(3-4): 149-164

Srivastava, N. and Rastogi, D. (2018) ‘Nettle fiber: Himalayan wonder with extraordinary textile properties’ in International Journal of Home Science, 4(1): 281-285

Sutherland, E. (2020) ‘Nettle tales: the folklore of nettles’, resource for Páirc Náisiúnta Shléibhte Chill Mhantáin, wicklowmountainsnationalpark.ie/wpcontent/uploads [accessed 07/02/22]

Versions of The Brothers Who Were Turnedinto Birds can be found at: sites.pitt.edu/~dash/type0451.html