Nettles have many folklore traditions associated with them. The folklore mainly relates to the stinging nettle (
Urtica dioica), but the similar non-stinging
Lamium may be involved in some traditions.[
citation needed]
Handmade soap with the extract of stinging nettle
- Nettles in a pocket will keep a person safe from lightning and bestow courage.[citation needed]
- Nettles kept in a room will protect anyone inside.[citation needed]
- Nettles are reputed to enhance fertility in men, and fever could be dispelled by plucking a nettle up by its roots while reciting the names of the sick man and his family.[citation needed]
Literature
Asian[edit]
Milarepa, the great Tibetan
ascetic and saint, was reputed to have survived his decades of solitary
meditation by subsisting on nothing but nettles; his hair and skin turned green and he lived to the age of 83.
[8]
Caribbean[edit]
The Caribbean trickster figure
Anansi appears in a story about nettles, in which he has to chop down a huge nettle patch in order to win the hand of the king's daughter.
[9]
European[edit]
An old
Scots rhyme about the nettle:
"Gin ye be for lang kail coo the nettle, stoo the nettle
Gin ye be for lang kail coo the nettle early
Coo it laich, coo it sune, coo it in the month o' June
Stoo it ere it's in the bloom, coo the nettle early
Coo it by the auld wa's, coo it where the sun ne'er fa's
Stoo it when the day daws, coo the nettle early."
(
Old Wives Lore for Gardeners, M & B Boland)
Coo, cow, and stoo are all Scottish for cut back or crop (although, curiously, another meaning of "stoo" is to throb or ache), while "laich" means short or low to the ground.
[10] Given the repetition of "early," presumably this is advice to harvest nettles first thing in the morning and to cut them back hard [which seems to contradict the advice of the Royal Horticultural Society].
A well-known English rhyme about the stinging nettle is:
Tender-handed, stroke a nettle,
And it stings you for your pains.
Grasp it like a man of mettle,
And it soft as silk remains.
In
Hans Christian Andersen's fairy-tale "
The Wild Swans," the princess had to weave coats of nettles to break the spell on her brothers.
Mr_Bungle , I suspect this is just a weed that sprouted after a recent rainfall with a bunch of other weed seedlings I'm used to seeing, but this is a new one. Any idea what it is? I'm in Zone 10, southern California.
Serpens
I have no idea that plant is. I tried looking at a plant database for your zone. It could very well possibly be a non-native plant. If it produces any blooms that would greatly help any chances of identification.
