Botanica Fabula

Cloth of Nettle

Amanda Edmiston

Spring is beckoning, so on our country walks it’s now necessary to avoid a brush with the Noedl, the Naughty Man's Plaything, Scaddie, Hoky-poky, Devil's Leaf, Heg-beg, Stingers... that is, Nettles. If one does nick your ankles, just remember: instead of letting its sting bother you, grasp the Nettle. We can steel ourselves with Nettle's iron.

Seek them out and gather a handful of new leaves to add to potage. Watch how they reclaim neglected sites— healing our waste, turning middens into minerals. They offer relief from allergies to pollen, and perhaps to feathers... It's time to enjoy the power of the fortifying Nettle, giving us the strength to complete the most arduous task...

As the birds flew southwards for the winter, a Queen sat spinning in a castle tower. No Nettle fibres like the peasants wore blended with wool, but the finest silk from far away. Her seven young sons played in the gardens far below; she watched them happily, but still she wished for a daughter. Her musing made her miss with her needle and prick her finger— she gasped and watched as the blood fell, drop by drop, crimson onto the snow-white silk. A spell began to form, with no intention to mark it— and an incantation, time worn, story-formed, fell from her lips:

“How I wish I had a daughter; I would give every drop of blood I have ever shed for a daughter.”

A rustling like a whisper of feathers drew her attention away from the window and her work, and she turned to look to the back of the room. From out of the corner stepped a woman, long grey hair like feathers stretching down her back.

“A daughter you will receive, but your sons pay the price. As twelve years pass, the bill will need reckoning,” the woman muttered, her voice crackling with lack of use.

The Queen, fearing for her sons, tried to retract her wish. But the only reply the woman gave was that once the blood had spilt and the feather had fallen, it would take more than words to change the future. She faded back into the corner, leaving only a long grey feather behind.

Nine months passed and a daughter was born to the Queen. Every day she watched for the greyhaired woman, but she never saw her again. Everyone loved the baby girl; her brothers played with her and sang her rhymes, and all seemed well in the world.

As the princess reached her twelfth birthday, the royal family took measures to double the protection on their sons. The princes were ushered into the safest room in the palace, with just one window too high for any man to reach, a strong Oak door, and Rowan berries for protection draped over the lintel. As midnight struck, it seemed that the sons had escaped harm— but then the daughter was awoken by the eerie cry of swans and a cool draught as wings passed her window. Her parents unlocked the heavy Oak door and found the high window ajar and their sons gone, a solitary grey feather lying on the floor.

All in the palace went into a state of shock. The princess begged her parents every year to allow her to go in search of her brothers. Finally, after six years of pleading, they gave their blessing and she left to find out what had become of them. She travelled for months and eventually came to a lake on the edge of the kingdom, where she found a hut made of twigs and moss. Stood in the doorway was an old woman, hair like long grey feathers stretching down her back. The princess asked for news of her brothers and was told to cast her eyes to the lake. There, seven swans glided ghostlike— her brothers, held in an enchantment. One still wore a golden chain, gifted by her many years before.

There was a way to help them, the old woman murmured. The girl must gather Nettles, weave andsew, create seven shirts, one for each brother, but as she did so she must not utter a single noise.

The girl made her way down to the lake. There the swans gathered around her, watching as she wove and stitched every Nettle she could find into cloth. Once she slept, the swans gathered her up in her first length of cloth and flew with her to an island in the centre of the lake. When the girl awoke, she discovered her brothers were human once more. They all asked her questions, but no noise did she make. They gathered around her and told their tale, of their transformation into swans, how every evening, here, they became men for a few short hours, ending at first light. She listened but made no sound, hands weaving all the while. And there she stayed, guarded by her swan brothers, mute to the world, gathering armfuls of Nettles that blistered and stung her hands. She never complained, never spoke, never wept.

The months went by and, as is the way in stories of enchantment, someone saw her and was struck by her beauty. Her perseverance had struck the heart of son of the laird of the island. He couldn’t stop thinking about her, found the courage to speak to her, and the pair found ways to talk together using gestures and signs. He told her stories as she kept on weaving and sewing to save her brothers. As autumn blew in the laird's son persuaded the girl to come and continue her work in his castle, bidding his men to carry carefully all her Nettle cloth. She made it her new home, and was as well-loved in it as she had been in her old one.

With just one exception. One figure did not marvel at her sewing; one person was calculating, cold and angry. The laird’s wife raged that her son had fallen for a mute— and she suspected a spell, as she was herself well-versed in magic and mayhem. She hated the girl and tried everything in her power to make her son see the worst in her. She tried to starve the young woman, but fortified by her Nettles she kept on weaving. The laird’s wife tried dark and dreadful spells, but none of the intended horrors befell the young couple. So the laird’s wife started to watch over the young woman all day and all night.

Eventually the girl had harvested every Nettle she could find, but there was one place she knew they grew better than any other: they flourished in the churchyard, amid the decaying bodies. Driven by need, she turned to the kirk as night fell. She was followed by the laird’s wife.

In those days it was said that only one type of creature circled the homes of the dead at night— witches, whose work was to grab macabre souvenirs, fragments of corpses to aid and power their ill deeds. Only witches, it was claimed, gathered round freshly dug graves as stars twinkled overhead. Silently, the girl haunted the kirk-yard, gathering armfuls of Nettles as the witches circled widdershins and her lover's mother kept watch.

The mother seized her moment: it was the only way to beat her son's affliction. The witch-pricker was called, a man well versed in the piercing of skin, but as he stabbed with his needle still the girl didn’t cry out, still her hands worked over her Nettles— no noise, just a flurry of activity, sewing quickly, nearing the task’s end. The witch-pricker knew his job was in the laird’s wife's pay, and the silence of the princess was confession enough. She was to be burned as a witch. As the fire was built, she kept on sewing— only one shirt left to go.

As she was sent to the stake, her Nettle shirts went too; no one dared touch them, so they let her carry her own handiwork, her hands still moving as she hastily sewed the last sleeve on the last shirt. Her man cried out as his mother's guards held him back, screaming that she was innocent, but the flames licked up her ankles. The chill coursed up her legs as the flesh burnt in sweet-smelling agony, yet she still made no sound, lifting the shirts higher. Then, a rustle of feathers— she saw the swans circling and threw each shirt in turn to slip over each of the birds’ necks. Seven princes stood tall. As the flames leapt higher, their sister found her voice and screamed to the man she now loved, protesting her innocence. The presence of the legendary missing princes proved her claim, and she was rescued at last as the flames blackened her thighs. But as she was lifted from the flames, one of the Nettle shirts, the last she’d made, started to tear. The sleeve of the youngest brother's shirt fell quite away, leaving him with a swan's wing— a memory of the enchantment for ever after.

The brothers and their sister returned to their kingdom and joy returned to the land. The princess and the laird’s son were finally wed, and as for his mother... well. Surely you know what happened to witches in those days...

The story of The Wild Swans has variants all around the world, just as Nettles grow profusely in nearly every country on earth.

References

This version of The Wild Swans by Amanda Edmiston can be heard on her podcast: anchor.fm/amanda-edmiston/episodes/Wild-Swans-and-Cloth-of-Nettle-e10mdfv