I always found an ever abundance of nettles during the summer months when I was a wee child. The ones that really stuck with me, (pun intended,) was the stinging nettle Urtica diotica that I would eventually run into while playing hide and seek, or tag with neighborhood friends. According to botanists non stinging Nettle is known as Urtica.

Do the fae hide under the nettles? In Danish folklore, they once believed the fae/fairies would hide and play among the nettles pictured in Feature image.

Nettles typify the Scandinavian Thunder god Thor. In the past Nettles were tossed into a fire during a thunderous storm to revere Thor and for protection of the home. Nettles were used by the trickster god Loki, to craft a fishing net using nettles.

The Lacunga is a compilation of herbal magical texts from the 10th century. The Anglo-Saxon ‘Nine Herb Charm’ which includes Wergula/Nettles…

Happy August, everyone! To celebrate my upcoming novella’s release, I’d love to share a taste of it here with you. I’ve selected a moment inspired by the journal of one of La Crosse’s founders, Nathan Myrick. Here’s the original excerpt:

“In October of that year [1844] quite a colony of Mormons came up from Nauvoo [Illinois] and landed at La Crosse…. They built twenty-five or thirty log houses and made themselves quite comfortable….The pay was drawn by the elders in provisions to support the families of the settlement. Just as the river opened in the spring [1845], the men all came down from Black River, and the men stopped cutting…. News got out they were all going to leave. I went down to the settlement to see the elders and adjust matters…. That night they set fire to most of their houses and embarked in their flat-boats, and left by…

Why the Bear is Stumpy-tailed is an old Norwegian fairy tale that was gathered from Norwegian folks by Jørgen Moe and Peter Christen Asbjørnsen in their fairy tale book Norske Folke-eventyr 1843.

One day the bear met the fox, who came slinking along with a string of fish he had stolen.

“Whence did you get those from?” asked the bear.

“Oh! my Lord Bruin, I’ve been out fishing and caught them,” said the fox.

So the bear had a mind to learn to fish too, and bade the fox tell him how he was to set about it.

“Oh! it’s an easy craft for you,” answered the fox, and soon learnt. You’ve only got to go upon the ice, and cut a hole and stick your tail down into it; and so you must go on holding it there as long as you can. You’re not to mind if…

« Quoi de plus fatal que de traiter en ennemis et d’envoyer à la mort des hommes qui n’ont commis d’autre crime que celui de penser avec indépendance ? »

«What, I ask, can be more fatal than that men should be considered enemies and condemned to death, not because of any wickedness or crime, but because they have a mind worthy of a free man? »

Baruch Spinoza (1632 – 1677), in Traité Théologico-Politique, 1670, est un philosophe néerlandais dont la pensée se rattache au courant rationaliste. Cette dernière aura une influence majeure sur la pensée des autres auteurs de son époque.