Short Story: The Braid Of Nettles

Short Story: The Braid Of Nettles

This piece has not been edited by the ShortbreadStories team.

It had been ten years since what happened in the parish happened and now, on each anniversary, what happened, happened again. The nettles died.

Each year the grip of winter stepped aside to allow the crispness of early spring take centre stage. Snowdrops first, followed by an aromatic carpet of wild garlic, until eventually, in the second week of April, nettles would push their way up through the moist earth. Theirs were the sharp angry leaves bursting forth, as tendril roots knitted an impenetrable mat below and as the air became alive with the sweet earthy scent that was so unmistakably ‘nettle’.

Everything in the garden was, as they say, perfect.

Perfect that was until April 30th, May Day eve, when what happened, happened and all the nettles died.

To say they died would not be wholly correct for it would be more accurate to say they were killed. Murdered in their nettle beds.

‘Molly, did you manage to find any nettles?’ called Cynthia

‘Only withered ones, I’m afraid, it is exactly the same as last year’

‘And the year before that’ piped Rebecca as she joined the conversation.

These were the ladies of the Newton Wortmead Flower Circle. Molly, Rebecca and Cynthia, a trio of ladies who without fail put freshly cut flowers in the church. They were also the ones who kept an eye on the flowers on the parish graves replacing them as need be.

If there was a talk on flower arranging to be presented it was one of these ladies, but often two and sometimes all three, who would wax before local groups on the art and science of flower arranging.

Then there was May Day when each year the three came together to decorate the village Maypole for the annual celebrations.

The highlight of the festival, as of any May Day festival, was the crowning of the village May Queen and the highlight of that was the wearing of the May Day garland, the garland that the three ladies had expertly woven the day before.

There was however one thing missing, or at least there had been for the past ten years and that was the braid of nettle that was supposed to be woven into the garland in the belief that to do so would keep mischief makers away from the village for the coming year.

Tradition had it that the flowers of the meadows and hedgerows had special protective powers when woven together into a garland. The weaving and plaiting, the twisting and the binding conjured a protective spell which kept all manner of ailments and mishaps at bay for the coming year.

The ladies chatted and worked despite being disappointed at there, once again, being a lack of nettles while high above, perched on the aged beams of the hall, sat four rather smugly contented fairies languishing in the glow of self satisfaction having completed a job well done. It was they who each May Day eve took to the skies and with words and dust slayed the nettles.

If it was not for them and their sweeping of the parish there would be nettles and if there were nettles to be had on 1stMay then there would be a nettle braid woven deep into the garland and if that were the case then there would be no mischief, and where, one could ask, would the fun be in that.

After all if there was no mischief then who would chase the vicar’s cat up his neighbors monkey puzzle tree?

Who would make the hinge on the playground gate creak on still nights or better still make the children’s swings swing or when unattended make the roundabout spin round slowly?

Without mischief there would be no questions asked or rumours started, there would be no accusatory looks from the biddies of the village as youngsters in hoodies rode their undersized mountain bikes across the green. Without mischief there would be no-one to blame, and almost certainly there would be fewer things to discuss at the parish council meeting. They wouldn’t have to discuss the over filling of the council provided litter bins, neither would they have to discuss the spate of tyre deflations that had occurred over the past year nor debate long into the night as to whether or not they needed to increase the in policing for the village and whether such an recommendation would alter the precepts and therefore increase the residents council tax bill for the coming year.

The four fairies were pleased with what they did and saw it as being a service that they provided for the parish of Newton Wortmead.

By slaying the nettles they kept both themselves and the residents busy for another year.

But tradition was tradition and as Cynthia rightly pointed out the May Queen’s garland should have, no must have, a braid of nettles if it is be a proper May Queen’s garland.

‘We could go over to Newton Rottle. I saw some lovely nettles there when I drove through earlier in the week’ Rebecca suggested.

‘No Rebecca, you know the rules. The garland must be woven from flowers from the parish. Nothing else will do otherwise we would be importing all manner of foliage from around the world and that, as they say, would never do. No, Newton Wortmead’s garland has to be made from Newton Wortmead’s own flowers and if there are no Newton Wortmead nettles, then so be it’

Rebecca wondered whether or not it had been a good idea making the suggestion in the first place as she picked up a pair of secateurs and snipped an errant piece of greenery with feeling.

With their gossamer wings folded neatly behind them, their tunics a little grubby from the mission, the fairies slept a sleep that placed them somewhere between being half awake and half asleep. The no man’s land where sounds still register but where the eyes remain too heavy to open, the place where sudden sounds exaggerate the senses causing the slumberer to startle and flay in an embarrassing fashion.

Molly, accidently kicked the chair that tipped the bucket, the galvanised bucket from its perch, onto the floor. The explosion of sound filled the room as four groggy fairies awoke as one, rubbed their eyes, wondered where they were before peering down on to scene below.

In a moment, in a twinkle of an eye, there was a whir of fairy wings a sprinkle of spangled dust and a shimmer of light as a fifth fairy, alighted beside them.

‘Y’see the mischief is still working. We’re here for another year!’ and with that she swooped from the beam, diving towards the ladies, snipping the heads off three of Cynthia’s early flowering marigolds as she passed before performing a perfect loop to loop on her return flight to the beam.

‘I love May Day’ she declared while the others just thought thoughts like ‘I wish she didn’t wear that green t-shirt emblazed with ‘Nettle Slayer’ on it.’

While Molly gathered up the contents from the bucket, Cynthia looked at the three marigold heads that lay discarded on the table and then at Rebecca who was holding the secateurs and wondered.

The garland was complete, apart from the nettles, and outside on the green the local silver band could be heard practicing their version of the ‘Floral Dance’. There was an air of excitement as the ladies paraded the garland before themselves, each taking it in turns to wear it so that the other two could make sure that everything was as it should be, which it was.

There was now nothing more that they could do except wait. None of them wanted to leave the garland unattended as each quietly mistrusted the other two to leave things well alone if their back were turned. Cynthia was still wondering about the marigolds but made no mention of it. Rebecca still recalled Cynthia’s put down and did likewise while Molly simply looked out of the window, across the green to where the children were gathering around the Maypole.

Eventually the time arrived when the garland was to be taken from the hall to the green. Cynthia put on her ceremonial white gloves and lifted the garland from the table and made her way towards the door.

Molly and Rebecca, like maids in waiting, followed on slightly left and right of Cynthia and slightly but most definitely behind her.

The five rather shabby fairies circled above them taking in the aerial view.

Out the door, down the steps, the sun light on their faces felt warm and bright as the band started up the familiar introduction to the Floral Dance.

A ripple of applause greeted the three as they walked the well worn path which led towards the green.

It was then that it happened……..

Cynthia, proud with pomp and ceremony didn’t notice, neither for that matter did Molly but Rebecca, who wasn’t really looking where she was going, did.

There is was, just one, out of the crack between paving slabs a shoot. An angry shout-at-the-world shoot of one single baby nettle.

She yelped with muffled delight as she bent down as with total disregard for her own discomfort picked it.

The five fairies screamed a scream that no-one heard, as they realized their magic would be useless with it working only on still-in-the-ground living nettles and not picked ones.

They summoned up a swarm of bees, they called for thunderbolts, they demanded lightening strikes, they even swore allegiance to a troop of garden gnomes but to no avail as Rebecca placed the bright green spike-leaved nettle into the garland.

The mischief was over, the magic gone and for the next year there would be no more fairies pushing swings and emptying litter bins. Parish Councils meetings would be over almost before they had begun, gossip would falter, and as tyres remained inflated Newton Wortmead would somehow seem to be not quite the same.