Nettle: Three Nettles in May Keeps All Diseases Away
“To this day it (nettle) is boiled in the Highlands and in Ireland by the country people in the spring-time. Till tea became the fashion, nettles were boiled in meal, and made capital food.”
John Cameron, Gaelic Names of Plants, 1883
Cover art by John William Waterhouse
Stinging Nettle or urtica dioica and urtica urens are also called common nettle, devil’s leaf or nettle leaf. It’s called neantóg or neantóg bheag in Gaeilge and feanntag in Scots Gaelic. Nettle derives its name from the English word ‘nettled’ which means irritated or angry. It would have been a common phrase to use nettled as a term to describe how one was annoyed. The species is divided into six subspecies, five of which have stinging hairs called trichomes. The hairs are like needles acting as a defense mechanism that inject histamine and other chemicals into the skin when touched producing a stinging sensation. Experiencing the sensation once is all the motivation that’s needed if you’re wanting to avoid it from happening again. Personally, I feel that experiencing the sting was for me, quite akin to a ritual rite of passage.
The first time I experienced it was crouching down along a river on a back winding road through Scotland I don’t remember the name of. I was watching eels swimming hypnotically on the river bed bottom when I inched a bit too close to the edge. She nipped me as if to say, “watch yourself”. If it was an endearing warning, or in retaliation for stepping on her sacred ground, I’m not sure, but I appreciated it nonetheless. I’ve become incredibly fond of nettle and it really is just a complete powerhouse of an herb, likely due to its Vitamin A and iron content. I love the full earthly flavor and if there is any herb that truly feels like medicine going down for me, it’s nettle infusions in the spring. Nettle makes a great compost activator because of its high nitrogenous compounds and is truly an indispensable herb to have around. There are so many varied and beneficial uses, a popular saying among herbalists is “When in doubt, use nettles!”.
Dioscorides mentioned nettle being used to treat wounds, dog bites, tumors, inflammation, abscesses, asthma, pneumonia as well as to induce menstrual flow and acting as an aphrodisiac. In Ireland, nettle was used to treat respiratory issues1, whooping cough2, wounds3, skin ailments such as boils and rashes4, measles5, and cooling the blood.6 Often the tops of the nettles were boiled in water with a little butter added to them or whisky to make the cure.7 Alcoholic beer can be made from young nettles and still retains many vitamins and minerals remaining a healthy nutritive. Similarly to the dandelion, there are an incredible 2,372 current transcripts in the Irish Folk Duchas that mention nettle.
There is an old Gaeilge saying ‘Neantóg a dhóigh mé, copóg a leigheas mé’, which means ‘a nettle stings me, a dock will cure me.‘8 The cure, being the dock (Rumex obtusifolius) plant which typically grows near nettles and like nettles shows that the ground is good fertile soil. This naturally includes many of the mentions in the Folk Duchas but nonetheless it is quite a popularly known and cherished medicine in the Irish folk library. The nettle has nearly similar and as wide of a range of uses in both Scotland, Wales and England. It was somewhat of a unanimous spring tonic throughout the isles that was thought to clean the blood of impurities. “Three nettles in May keeps all diseases away.” was once a very popular rhyme and this refers to drinking nettle infusions three times a day for the first three days of May. Many people may have also carried nettle believing it to keep evil influences away or to help break a spell put upon them, essentially fighting a sting with a sting or as the saying goes fighting ‘fire with fire’.
Nettle was thought to be one of the main staple foods that kept many people from starving during the famines in both Ireland and Scotland. It was said that after the massacres of the “…aged and infirm, the nursing mother and the baby at the breast, the blind and feeble men, women, boys and girls, sick persons and idiots’ countless more died of starvation as the policy by Englishmen was to take or destroy all food deliberately and the Irish people were then commonly found in ditches ‘with their mouths all coloured green by eating nettles, docks and all things they could rend above ground.”9 Caesar’s troops likely introduced the Roman nettle (U. pilulifera) into Britain and they often flailed themselves with nettles to keep warm. This practice was a common folk remedy known as ‘urtication’, and essentially entailed beating oneself with nettles and bringing blood to the surface for a warming effect that eased symptoms of arthritis and rheumatism.
The last day of April was called Féile na Neantóg or “Nettlemas” in Ireland where boys and girls were said to run around stinging one another with branches of nettle. ‘Young and merry maidens, too, not infrequently avail themselves of the privilege to ‘sting’ their lovers; and the laughter in the street is often echoed in the drawing room.’10 There was a similar custom in Cornwall called ‘Stinging Nettle Day’.11 Nettle has a uniquely incredible amount of potential uses from medicine, food, textile or fiber use as well as for green dye.
The use of the plant in this way is very old and in fact, a piece of nettle cloth was discovered in a Bronze age burial mound in Denmark that dates to approximately 800 BCE. In the sixteenth and seventeenth century nettle fibers were still used in Scotland for weaving many household items. The historian Westmacott said, “Scotch cloth is only the housewifery of the nettle. In Friesland, also, it was used till a late period.” Writer P.J. Joyce gave an account of nettle usage in Scotland that “St. Columba was walking near the monastery of Iona, he saw a poor old woman cutting nettles; and he asked what she wanted them for. She replied: “I have but one cow that I am expecting to calve soon: and until that happens I live on nettle-pottage, which I have eaten for a long time back.”
Nettle was popular around Bealtaine and often gathered on May Eve. In the famous tale of the Children of Lir, nettles are mentioned as being like ‘forests’ in the countryside. In one folktale involving Fion, son of Cumhail called Beanriogain na Sciana Breaca, the chieftain in the story pulled up a nettle, muttered a charm over it while changing it in his hands three times before it became a mighty weapon.12
Another interesting story regarding pulling up the nettle survived into more modern times. The story goes that once there was a boy who was very fond of card-playing and would be very late coming home. One night, through the darkness he saw a man on the side of the road sitting at a table with a pack of cards and a lighted candle. It was the devil himself and as the boy approached he asked him to sit down and play cards with him.
At first the boy was winning and the boy was very happy but then the devil started to win until the boy had nothing left. The devil told him to go ahead and play his two eyes, to which the devil won. The boy was not able to see after that and asked the devil to put him in a safe place so he took him to the local graveyard and left him there. At the same time the king’s daughter had fallen very ill and it was proclaimed that whoever cured her would get to marry her. In the middle of the night at the graveyard, the boy heard the local cats talking, one of which was a cat that resided in the king’s house. It admitted to poisoning her in retaliation for her beating it and it made the whereabouts known of a cure near the well at the end of the graveyard with a nettle growing on it. The girl would only get better when she’d drank three bottles of the water. The boy wandered and found the well and when he pulled up the nettle near it, the water hit him in the face and cured his blindness. He took three bottles of the water with him to the king and his daughter, and cured her. They were married and lived happily together thereafter.13
Nettle is in the Urticaceae family and native to Europe, Asia and western North Africa. It has now become naturalized in many parts of the world and can be found almost anywhere, especially in North America. Nettle has rounded and serrated leaves joining at a point with flowers that are very small and greyish yellow with yellow anthers that typically bloom from late spring through midsummer and it may have been associated with the Spring Equinox or Bealtaine. It’s a perennial hardy from zone 3 through 10, grow up to 1 1/2 m or 5 ft and does well in part shade to sunny areas, nutritious and moist but disturbed soil, often appearing by rivers or woodland edges. Nettle’s energy is hot and dry. The leaves, stems and roots are the edible portion and have a slightly bitter taste. When cooked, it tastes similar to spinach. It’s most commonly used as an infusion, tincture, extract, decoction, oil and poultice or eaten as a whole food. It must be cooked first to deactivate the trichomes.
Nettle is best harvested in the spring before flowering and the roots can be harvested in the fall after the 2nd year of growth and plants are well established. You can harvest the whole root and plant or only take slices off of the main taproot. When harvesting, make sure to wear gloves and ‘grasp the nettle’ tightly just under the base of the first few groups of leaves and pluck quickly to avoid being stung. If you do get stung, you can use the old remedy of rubbing a poultice of dock leaves onto the sting to neutralize it and the saying goes ‘Nettle in, dock out – Dock rub nettle out!’ Interestingly, the juice of the nettle can provide some relief for its own sting as well. I can personally attest that this works! Those people with blood clotting issues or on pharmaceuticals to increase blood clotting need to take particular caution with nettles as it’s high in vitamin K and therefore can increase clotting capabilities as well.
Benefits
analgesic, antiallergenic, anti-inflammatory, antibacterial, anticancer and antitumor, antimicrobial, antioxidant, antirheumatic, astringent, blood tonic, coagulant, digestive tonic, diuretic, galactagogue, hair tonic, heart tonic, hemostatic, hypotensive, nutritive, reproductive tonic, skin tonic, stimulant, urinary tract tonic, vulnerary
Recipe
Brotchán Neanntóg (Nettle Soup)
Nettle soup has been eaten since early times in Ireland. This is a traditional recipe from County Kerry that has only been slightly changed over the years.
Ingredients: 8 cups or 2 quarts nettles, 8 cups or 2 quarts water, 1 ½ tbsp of flour, 1 tbsp of butter or margarine, salt and pepper
Directions: With gloves, chop the nettles and boil in slightly salted water for ten minutes. Melt your butter and add flour then stir until blended. Add this to your nettles while still stirring and simmer for an additional five minutes. Season with pepper or other favored flavorings of your choice.
Footnotes
Allen, David and Hatfield, Gabrielle, Medicinal Plants in Folk Tradition: An Ethnobotany of Britain & Ireland, Timber Press, 2004, pg. 84.
K’Eogh, John. Edited by Michael Scott, 1986. An Irish Herbal. 1735. Pg. 110.
Anonymous. Translated by Winifred Wulff. On Wounds. Ireland. 1352.
Irish Folk Duchas, The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0442, Page 447
Irish Folk Duchas, The Schools’ Collection, Volume 1101, Page 091
Irish Folk Duchas, The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0925, Page 010
Irish Folk Duchas, The Schools’ Collection, Volume 1096, Page 235
Patrick Dolan, Terence, A Dictionary of Hiberno-English: The Irish Use of English, Gill Books, 2006, pg. 62.
Robertson, John Mackinnon, The Saxon and the Celt, University Press, 1897, pg. 48.
Danaher, Kevin, The Year in Ireland, Cork, 1994, pg. 18.
Vickery, Roy, A Dictionary of Plant-Lore, Oxford Paperbacks, 1997, pg. 256.
Kennedy, Patrick, Legendary Fictions of the Irish Celts, Macmillan and Co., 1891, pg. 201.
Irish Folk Duchas, The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0021, Page 0176
Wyse Jackson, Peter, Ireland’s Generous Nature: The Past and Present Uses of Wild Plants in Ireland, Missouri Botanical Garden Press, 2014, pg. 593.
Thank you so much for following The Ivy Cottages! All of my posts are free but if you do wish to support me, hop on over to my Amazon to purchase one of my books or buy me a coffee to support my mini farm and plethora of animals! Thank you!
All of my herbal and folkloric information is research based with citations.