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By Eleanor Sutherland

It is hard to even begin to delve into the folklore

surrounding nettles. Nettles have accompanied

human civilisation and dwellings almost all over the

globe, and since the beginning of time we have had a

love-hate relationship with the species.

Nettle fibre cloth was found wrapped around

cremated human remains from the Bronze Age in

Denmark. In the 1800's the poet Thomas Campbell

wrote 'I have eaten nettles, I have slept in nettle sheets, and I have dined off a nettle tablecloth'. Nettle

fibre was softer than wool and warmer than linen and was probably used to wrap newborn babies.

Roman soldiers are documented as beating themselves with nettles on their bare skin in an attempt

to allay the pains of rheumatism brought on by cold damp weather, and that practice survived until

recent times. How lucky we are now to live in heated houses!

When we speak here about 'nettles', we are considering the perennial, hairy, rank growth species

known as Common nettle, Urtica diocia. Irish name: Neantóg. It has separate male and female plants

and is wind pollinated but it also spreads by means of very tough bright yellow roots. There are other

nettle species, notably Small nettle, Urtica urens, which has male and female flowers on the same

plant. It is also smaller and an introduced annual. Then there are the 'dead nettles', some of which are

garden ground cover plants.

In Ireland, in the past, nettles have been a source of food, of dye, and a useful fibre. They were used

as tea and for brewing beer, and were used in folk medicine. Nettles are associated with saints on the

one hand and on the other hand, they have been gathered for fertility games at the old May Day

festival of Bealtaine.

St Kevin of Glendalough was said to have lived only off nettles for a time, probably during Lent. He

started to get rather thin and a deputy saint who was helping him by doing the cooking noticed this.

He knew that Kevin was determined to stick to his fast so took an Elder tree stick to stir the nettle

porridge and he poured some milk and broth into the pot through the hollow stick. Kevin noticed he

was gaining weight and inquired about what was in the cooking pot. The cook said ‘only the water and

nettles and whatever comes from the potstick’. And so they both had their way and no harm was

done. This story has also been attributed to St Colmcille.

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St Bridget of Kildare was in a different league altogether and was known for her hospitality. She was

attributed with creating a wonderful feast for visitors when the cupboard was empty, by magically

transforming nettles into tasty food.

Another story about St Kevin and nettles tells that when he was young and full of life, he was praying

peacefully in the wilderness, not aware of how handsome was his demeanour. (The name Kevin, in

Irish means 'of gentle birth' and he was known to be handsome and from a prosperous family.) A

young lady was passing by and she fell madly in love with Kevin. He was rather taken by her as well.

To avoid any temptation of the body, the young holy man rolled in a bed of nettles until his heart fire

was cooled by the fire of the stinging he received. He then suggested that the girl also do the same

thing. The lady in question also received a stinging. Later she became a nun and spent the rest of her

days in prayer.

Nettles are seen as a sign of desolation and eviction. Many folk nowadays view nettles as an

unwelcome sight around a homestead or garden because of these associations, whereas those who

study the ways of nature consider nettles as an important species that creates valuable habitats,

especially for our insect populations, and so will leave clumps to flourish in out of the way places.

A story tells that when the Children of Lir returned after their exile, they went to visit their former

home, only to see it 'with nothing in it but green hillocks and thickets of nettles, without a house,

without a fire, without a hearthstone.' Similarly, Oisín, on his return from the land of Tir na nÓg, found

the great hall of the Fianna 'deserted except for weeds and nettles.'

When travelling around the hills, one sometimes comes across old farmsteads that are long deserted

as homes, especially since the Irish Famine in 1845 - 1849. They are invariably covered with nettles,

especially around the area of the front door. The explanation is that in the days before sanitation and

drains, often the slops would be thrown out the front door, so the area there encourages the strong

growth of nettles that thrive in rich, nitrogenous soil. Also the old sites where manure would have

been heaped also become places where nettles thrive. If you come across a stand of nettles in a field

you can be sure that once upon a time, it was the site of a person’s home.

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Nettles were also used as food during the famine and

people's skin could become a little greenish from the

chlorophyll in the leaves.

Probably, our first meeting with nettles in childhood is

getting stung by them and being told the old cure of

rubbing the sting with a dock leaf. Perhaps it is a placebo

cure. Dock leaves seem to commonly grow near nettles

and both are deep rooted plants. Both are hard to

eradicate due to their deep rooting systems and the plants

themselves are mineral rich as a result. Plantain leaves

have been found to give greater relief to nettle stings but

they are not known in folk cures as such.

The stings on nettle leaves grow only on the top surface and they protect the plant and help to create

the abundant habitat which favours small insect life. They are small hairs of silica which contain a tiny

amount of Formic acid. If you accidently brush against a nettle, the tips break off the hairs which pierce

your skin and inject a little acid which can cause a tingling sensation for a short time. In this way we

learn to avoid them. However, most of us know that if you grasp a nettle firmly, the small hairs are

flattened and it cannot sting. Cooked nettles lose their sting and they can be gathered easily by

wearing gloves. An old rhyme says:

‘If you gently grasp a nettle,

It will sting you for your pains.

Grasp it tightly like a rod of metal,

And it soft as silk remains.’

Some words that can be applied to many things in life?

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Nettles are associated with the month of May in Ireland. In some parts, on April 30th, the evening

before May Day was called 'Nettlemas night’. Young people would pick bunches of nettles and run

around trying to catch passersby and their friends and sting them.

It was even seen as a courting game and the aim was to sting the most fancied one. This practice took

place in Ireland, Scotland, Devon and Cornwall. In some areas, nettles were put in the prospective

lover’s bed, although how this endeared one is debatable. Maybe it alludes to the possible 'sting in

the tail' in matters of romance and heartbreak?

Another old belief is that if you eat three meals containing nettles in May, that you will not be sick for

the rest of the year. This is still carried out to this day in many rural parts of Ireland. It was also said

that nettles were unfit to eat after the month of May due to the Devil using them to make a shirt. They

actually should not be eaten after early May as they become too coarse. They were used to make

what was termed a 'pottage' of nettles, a bit like a 'porridge', with oatmeal, water and nettles.

Recently, nettles have turned up on the menu in fancy restaurants as nettle soup. I have heard of them

being sold in the big fruit and vegetable market in Dublin. However, we cannot just pick nettles from

wherever we see them. It is important to be aware that the land they are growing on may be polluted

or the nettles may be sprayed, not to mention dogs and other animals. So it is important to be aware

of these factors if you want to try some nettle 'porridge' and only collect the young tops from areas

within your own jurisdiction where you know the provenance of your harvest. If you want to cultivate

an area for nettles for a healthy supplement to your diet, you can keep cutting them back and then

you can use them almost all year round. But remember to leave some uncut for the caterpillars.

Another reason they used to be so popular as food was that before the days of supermarkets and

global food distribution, people used to eat that was available locally. April and May are known as very

lean months. They used to be called the 'Hungry Gap' when the winter crops were finished and the

spring sown crops are not ready to harvest. So people ate what they could find growing wild in those

times and of course, there would not have been the levels of pollution we now experience in our

environment.

Another item we take for granted these day is our clothes. In Ireland we had plenty of wool and it was

of a rather coarse variety usually, and we had linen which comes from the flax plant. But we also had

nettle fibre which can be prepared in the same way as linen and produces quite a good cloth. The

fibres can also be used for twine and rope. This has recently been revived as a craft in some places.

The nettles used would be very long old stems which are then soaked in a pond. This process is called

'retting'. The nettles rot down and make a horrible stink, and the long stem fibres are then freed from

the rest of the plant. They can be dragged out of the pond to dry in the sun, and then they are pulled

through combs and spun into fibre.

Nettles were also used to dye wool green in Ireland and Scotland.

So you can see that the nettle has accompanied mankind through thick and thin, from the cradle to

the grave, in good times and sad times alike. It is important that we pay respect to nettles and allow

them to flourish in order to create habitats and hiding places for the many species that depend on

them. Perhaps, if I had not had my second nettle dinner in May today, would I have had the words

and the energy to share these notes with you? Take them as you will, with a pinch of salt or not, but

please spare the nettles for the sake of our beautiful Irish biodiversity.

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If we had no nettles we would not see many of the pretty butterflies that grace our summers and not

forgetting the autumn nettle seeds that our forefathers once used as a nutritious addition to their

diets and now form a valuable food source that enables many of our small birds to survive the winters

cold. That would indeed be real desolation in times to come. Many species are dependent on local

food sources and we might be too, more than we think we are. There are many lessons to be learned

from our ancestors who lived lives of resilience by depending on local resources. Many wild species

are the same in that way. No airplane travel means no foreign birdseed in the coming winter. So do

please put away that weedkiller for this year and allow the insects to flourish and the seeds to ripen

and who knows what we will see, and what tales we will tell about these times in future years?

References:

Wild Irish Plants by Niall Mac Coitir

The Scot's Herbal by Tess Darwin

Credits:

Text & Artwork by Eleanor Sutherland, Wicklow Mountains National Park