Nettle Stories

Nettle Fest is a festival at Hilltown exploring facets of nettle craft, food and lore

Urtica dioica

I am gathering stories and activities for this here

Lovely resources …

Referencing

Julie Bruton-Seal & Matthew Seal Hedgerow Medicine
Margaret Baker Discovering the Folklore of Plants

Some Notes from these sources

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  root(NETTLES)
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    (In Norse myth ..) 
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      During thunderstorms people threw nettle into the fire to appease Thor the thunderer and keep their home from being struck by lightening
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      Loki, the trickster god, whose magical fishing net is made from them
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    (Nettles used to make everything from heavy sailcloth to fine table linen up to the 17th/18th centuries)
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      (Poor man's linen)
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    (Margaret Baker in Discovering the Folklore of Plants)
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       Nettle oil preceded paraffin
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       the juice curdled milk and helped to make Cheshire cheese
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       nettle juice seals leaky barrels
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       nettles drive frogs from beehives and flies from larders
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       nettle compost encourages ailing plants
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       fruits packed in nettle leaves retain their bloom and freshness
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    (Mixing medicine and magic)
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       a healer could cure fever by pulling up a nettle by its roots while speaking the patient's name and those of his parents
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       Roman soldiers in damp Britain found that rheumatic joints responded to a beating with nettles
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       Tyroleans threw nettles on the fire to avert thunderstorms, and gathered nettle before sunrise to protect their cattle from evil spirits
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    (In food)
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       (Nettle soup is described by one modern writer as 'Springtime herbalism at one of its finest moments.' This soup is the Scottish kail)
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       (Tibetans believe that their sage and poet Milarepa lived solely on nettle soup for many years until he himself turned green: a literal green man)
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    (Nettles and Health)
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       (enhance natural immunity, helping protect us from infections)
       (Nettle tea drunk often at the start of a feverish illness is beneficial)
       (Nettles have long been considered a blood tonic and are a wonderful treatment for anaemia, as they are high in both iron and chlorophyll)
       (The iron in nettles is very easily absorbed and assimilated)

In parts of Ireland, the last day of April was called “Nettlemas” and boys were said to run around stinging one another with branches of nettle! SW England “Stinging Nettle Day”

Stories

Wild Swans

In the fairy tale of “The Wild Swans” by Hans Christian Andersen, the heroine’s brothers have been turned into swans by their evil stepmother. A kindly fairy instructs her to gather nettles in a graveyard by night, spin their fibers into a prickly green yarn, and then knit the yarn into a coat for each swan brother in order to break the spell – all of which she must do without speaking a word or her brothers will die. The nettles sting and blister her hands, but she plucks and cards, spins and knits, until the nettle coats are almost done – running out of time before she can finish the sleeve on the very last coat. She flings the coats onto her swan-brothers and they transform back into young men – except for the youngest, with the incomplete coat, who is left with a wing in the place of one arm. (And there begins a whole other tale.)

Look at the nettle that I hold in my hand! Around the cave where you are sleeping grow many of them; only those nettles, or the ones found in churchyards may you use. You must pick them, even though they blister and burn your hands; then you must stomp on them with your bare feet until they become like flax. And from that you must twine thread with which to knit eleven shirts with long sleeves. If you cast one of these shirts over each of the eleven swans, the spell will be broken. Hans Christian Anderson

Loki and the Fishing Net

loki Loki had insulted each of the gods while drunk and the gods were very keen on finding and punishing Loki.

Loki fled to the mountains where he built a house with four doors, each facing a different direction, so he could see anyone approaching. To ensure his escape, Loki found a waterfall nearby and would often hide there as a fish. Worrying that the Aesir might find someway of catching him as a fish, Loki conceived of a way to catch fish, to learn how to get away as a fish if the Aesir discovered the same method. Loki thus invented the first fishing net, and was trying to discover a flaw when the Aesir came looking for him. Frightened out of his house, Loki threw the net into the fire hoping to destroy the evidence of how to capture him. However the Aesir discovered the remnants of the net in the fire and were able to construct one of their own. This they used to dredge the waterfall and they were successfully able to capture Loki. In this story, Loki effectively outwits himself by constructing the net that would later catch him.

The salmon’s thin tail was said to be from how firmly Thor had held Loki. Loki returned to his true form, seeing no reason in prolonging the ineffective farce, and was severely punished for his harsh words.

Source: https://www.tumblr.com/loki-in-myth/26919318087/lokis-invention Picture Reference: 18th-century Icelandic manuscript https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loki

The Boy and the Nettle

Adapted from Aesop’s Fable

Story Notes

Grandma sends to the boy to gather nettle

shaped like diamond with a serrated edge covered in little hairs gives you the strength of 100 horses and makes medicine to make us well gather the nettle test your mettle do not return until the bag is full

meets the rabbit – her ears drooped down nose began to twitch

The nettle it has the bite of a snake

came to the side of the old stone wall filled with fear carefully reached out his hand gingerly touched and brushed the hairs and felt the bite of the snake ran back

I AM NOT PICKING THAT NETTLE

Grandma says

remember it will give you the strength of 100 horses and medicine to keep us well be bold be courageous but leave some nettles for the butterflies

Boy grabs without fear and fills the bag

these nettles will see us through the year bit what you have learnt will see you through your life

Activities

Nettle String

nettlestring

https://www.bbowt.org.uk/blog/claire-mcclafferty/family-activity-how-make-string-nettles

Enthusied