Found in the Hermetikon archive

Nettle

Urtica dioica

Nettle appears in Hermetikon as an archive-backed plant entry, with references across historical medical, magical, symbolic, and ritual contexts where the source texts support them.

Risk: moderate
Books: 58
Contexts: 6
Mentions: 260

Overview Reading Contexts Citations Related Books

Archive Profile

Identity, safety, and search aliases used to connect this herb to the archive.

Herb identity

Common name: nettle
Latin name: Urtica dioica(candidate)
Identity note: Dead-nettle, horse-nettle, and stinging nettle appear as distinct historical identities.

Safety

moderate

Diuretic and medication-interaction cautions are relevant for medicinal use.

Historical archive citations are not medical advice. Use modern clinical and poison-control sources for ingestion, dosage, pregnancy, and toxicity questions.

EMA HMPC: Diuretic and medication-interaction cautions are relevant for medicinal use.

Aliases

nettlenettle seednettlesUrtica dioica

Nettle in Historical Sources

Curated archive synthesis of recurring uses, recipes, rituals, and interpretive problems.

Hermetikon's curated reading of Nettle (Urtica dioica) is built from 3 source-linked archive notes and 1 preparation or ritual-use entry. The strongest recurring contexts are folk magic and identity. Each note below links back to the archive source used for the claim.

Identity

high

King's identifies nettle as Urtica dioica, the stinging nettle, with rigid hairs or prickles that transmit a venomous fluid when pressed.

King's American Dispensatory | Harvey Wickes Felter | 1854

Page 1146

Identity

high

Hill's featured nettle excerpt is red dead-nettle rather than stinging nettle, adding a disambiguation thread beside the Urtica dioica material.

The Family Herbal | John Hill | 1755

Page 64

Folk magic

high

Frazer records Quixos wives whipping hunters with nettles to make them fleet enough to overtake peccaries and also as a sickness cure.

The Golden Bough | James George Frazer | 1890

Â§ 15.â€”Scapegoats.

Preparations and ritual uses

ritual whipping

high

Frazer records Quixos hunters being whipped with nettles before hunting to increase fleetness and also as a folk cure for sickness.

The Golden Bough | James George Frazer | 1890

Â§ 15.â€”Scapegoats.

Nettle Archive Contexts

Compact source patterns from the extracted citation set.

Medicine

1 passage across 1 book; strongest source: Liber 777.

Matched as nettle; high confidence.

Astrology

2 passages across 2 books; strongest source: The Golden Bough.

Matched as nettles; high confidence.

Folk magic

1 passage across 1 book; strongest source: The Golden Bough.

Matched as nettles; high confidence.

Preparation

1 passage across 1 book; strongest source: The Family Herbal.

Matched as nettle; high confidence.

Ritual

3 passages across 3 books; strongest source: The Golden Bough.

Matched as nettles; high confidence.

Safety

5 passages across 5 books; strongest source: Culpeper's Complete Herbal.

Matched as nettles; high confidence.

Nettle Cited Excerpts

Representative public passages with the herb mention highlighted and linked to archive source material.

5 shown

Culpeper's Complete Herbal

Nicholas Culpeper

1653

"... and dry, binding, stops fluxes, and the immoderate flowing of the menses: you may take a dram at a time. *UrticÃ¦.* Of Nettles. See the leaves. *ZedoariÃ¦.* Of Zedoary, or Setwall. This and *Zurumbet*, according to *Rhasis*, and *Mesue*, are all one; *Avicenna* thinks them different: I hold with *Mesue*; indeed they differ in form, for the one is long, the other round; they are both hot and dry in the second degree, expel wind, resist poison, stop fluxes, and the menses, stay vomiting, help the cholic, and kill worms; you may take half a dram at a time. *Zingi..."

ROOTS.Open in Reader

Safetyalias: nettleshigh confidence

King's American Dispensatory

Harvey Wickes Felter

1854

"...he dose ranges from 7 to 15 grains. These are best given in broken amounts, the whole being taken in 24 hours. URTICA.— NETTLE. The leaves and root of Frtira dioica, Linne. Nat. Ord. — Urticacea\ Common Names: Nettle, Stinging nettle, Great stinging nettle. Botanical Source. — This plant is a perennial, herbaceous, dull-green plant, armed with minute rigid hairs or prickles, which transmit a venomous fluid when pressed. The stem is obtusely 4-angled, branching, 2 to 4 feet high, arising from a creeping and branching root, with fleshy shoots and many fibers. Th..."

Page 1146Open in Reader

Safetyalias: nettlehigh confidence

The Family Herbal

John Hill

1755

"...e whites, and all other weaknesses. There is a little plant with red flowers called also the red archangel, or red dead-nettle. It is common under the hedges, and in gardens; the stalks are square and weak, the leaves are short and notched at the edges, and the flowers small and red; the plant is not above four or five inches high, and these flowers grow near the tops among the leaves. They are in shape like those of the white archangel, but small. The herb is used fresh or dried, and the flowers. The decoction is good for floodings, bleedings at the nose, spi..."

Page 64Open in Reader

Preparationalias: nettlehigh confidence

The Golden Bough

James George Frazer

1913

"...fare is waged betwixt the youth of opposite sexes in the towns. They all sally out in the evenings, the boys armed with nettles or thistles and the girls with gourds containing a filthy solution of all sorts of abominations. When any of the hostile parties meet, they begin by reviling each other in the foulest language, from which they proceed to personal violence, the boys stinging the girls with their nettles, while the girls discharge their stink-pots in the faces of their adversaries. These hostilities may perhaps be regarded as a preparation for the festiv..."

Â§ 2. The Periodic Expulsion of Evils.Open in Reader

Astrologyalias: nettleshigh confidence

The Golden Bough

James George Frazer

1890

"... of the Quixos, in South America, before they set out on a long hunting expedition, cause their wives to whip them with nettles, believing that this renders them fleeter and helps them to overtake the peccaries. They resort to the same proceeding as a cure for sickness. 592 At Mowat in New Guinea small boys are beaten lightly with sticks during December â€œto make them grow strong and hardy.â€ 593 In Central Europe a similar custom is very commonly observed in spring. On the 1st of March the Albanians strike men and beasts with cornel branches, believing that ..."

Â§ 15.â€”Scapegoats.Open in Reader

Astrologyalias: nettleshigh confidence

Books Mentioning Nettle

Complete public source inventory, placed after the interpretive reading so the page opens with the most useful synthesis first.

58 books

Culpeper's Complete Herbal

Nicholas Culpeper | 1653

nettlesnettlenettle seed

86 mentionscited

King's American Dispensatory

Harvey Wickes Felter | 1854

nettlenettles

27 mentionscited

The Family Herbal

John Hill | 1755

nettlenettles

11 mentionscited

Hastings' Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics

James Hastings | 1908

nettlenettles

7 mentions

Anatomy of Melancholy

Robert Burton | 1621

nettlenettles

6 mentions

Liber 777

Aleister Crowley | 1909

nettle

5 mentions

The Golden Bough

James George Frazer | 1913

Archive Profile

Herb identity

Safety

Aliases

Nettle in Historical Sources

Identity

Identity

Folk magic

Preparations and ritual uses

ritual whipping

Nettle Archive Contexts

Medicine

Astrology

Folk magic

Preparation

Ritual

Safety

Nettle Cited Excerpts

Culpeper's Complete Herbal

King's American Dispensatory

The Family Herbal

The Golden Bough

The Golden Bough

Related Archive Material

Related herbs

Books Mentioning Nettle