4 WILD FLOWERS. 



The auld wife with ae tuith, 

 Cow the nettle, cow the nettle, 

 The auld wife with ae tuith, 



Cow the nettle early." 



And doubtless the almost toothless " auld wife " 

 would find the pottage so produced a very comfort- 

 able and appropriate food. 



The poet Campbell in his " Letters from the 

 South/' writes, " last of all my eyes luxuriated in 

 looking on a large bed of nettles. Oh, wretched 

 taste ! Your English prejudice perhaps, will ex- 

 claim ; l is not the nettle a weed, if possible, more 

 vile than even your Scottish thistle ?' But be not 

 nettled, my friend, at my praise of this useful weed. 

 In Scotland I have eaten nettles ; I have slept in 

 nettle-sheets, and I have dined off a nettle-table- 

 cloth. The young and tender nettle is an excel- 

 lent pot-herb. The stalks of the old nettle are as 

 good as flax for making cloth. I have heard my 

 mother say, that she thought nettle-cloth more 

 durable than any other species of linen/'* The 

 writer was not, however, aware that in the county of 

 Shropshire a similar use is made of the plant, as is 

 also the case in Ireland ; the stalks being dressed 



* Yol. ii., p. 150. 



Since transcribing the above I have extracted the follow- 

 ing note from the u Dundee Advertiser :" " I enclose a small 

 piece of cloth, a bit of the flag of the Tailor Incorporation, 

 Arbroath, made in 1670, as recorded in the minute-book of 

 the craft, from the common nettle. The cloth, you will notice, 

 is very fragile a mere rag, in fact but this may be account- 

 ed for by age and exposure to the weather, when the worthy 

 craft celebrated gala days by processions, &c." 



