They may deliver a painful sting, but they hide a multitude of sins

The route of my morning walk, for example, now takes me through a huge patch of these plants whose height in places almost matches mine. As they mature, however, a combination of wind and weather, with perhaps a little maturity, causes the nettles to wilt and eventually lie on the ground, tired and exhausted after a few months of life.

Stinging nettles are among the earliest of the crops to flourish along our country lanes and I do not complain about them because, even in their juvenile stage, they conceal the growing amount of litter left behind by uncaring passers-by.

Once they reach their full height, as much as 6ft in some cases, they are capable of concealing almost anything, even discarded settees and oil drums. What does not rot or get broken down by the hand of nature, or what is not removed by our rubbish collectors, is rapidly concealed by a lush crop of stinging nettles.

It is debatable whether that should be commended - the rubbish shouldn't be there in the first place and, sadly, when the nettles die, the rubbish will be revealed.

The truth is that nettles flourish among human rubbish. They seem to love it. Wherever humans choose to dump their waste, nettles will grow and their presence in woods and old quarries often reveals a former rubbish dump.

Examples can also be seen in many gardens and allotments which have a corner set aside for rubbish and there are times when I wonder if nettles depend upon something which they find among the junk cast away by humans.

Coincidentally, a good crop of nettles is beneficial to the soil because the plants add nourishment and break down the earth into a soft, light and almost fluffy consistency.

In spite of our reservations about nettles, they are - or were - a very useful plant for several reasons. A very palatable beer can be made from the tops of young nettles and they can also be boiled and used as a vegetable, the boiling process completely destroying the acid which produces the sting.

Nettle soup is another dish which was once very popular in this country, the taste being rather like spinach. There is also a nettle porridge and even a nettle haggis!

When dried, a type of tea can also be made from nettle leaves, but, in all cases, the leaves should be picked when the plant is young, certainly before June.

During the passage of summer, the leaves become very tough with a bitter taste and this is combined with a somewhat unkindly ability to produce a laxative! So beware!

In years gone by, a rough fabric was made from nettle stems - the bodies of Bronze Age Danes buried in this country were found to have been covered with cloth made from nettle stems and it is known that nettles were cultivated in Scandinavia as late as the eighteenth century.

The stalks were used to make fabrics and the leaves were used as food. Table cloths and bed linen were also made from nettles in English rural areas, but the practice ended with the importation of cotton, although it persisted in some parts of Scotland until little more than a century ago.

Even today, though, some people believe the sting of a nettle is a cure for certain types of rheumatism.

This idea has persisted since Roman times, but their medicinal properties cannot be overlooked - even as recently as the Second World War nettles were harvested to produce chlorophyll for use in medicines and their leaves were used in the manufacture of dye for colouring camouflage nets.

When the leaves are cooked while young, the formic acid which causes the familiar nettle stings on bare legs and arms is dispersed. But, while the plant is flourishing, its sting cannot be ignored.

It comes from tiny fragile hairs which cover the entire plant. Merely brushing against them with a bare arm or leg will fracture those brittle hairs to allow the acid to cause a painful rash on the skin.

Country children have their cures for nettle stings and it is said that the leaves of the plantain, dock or elder will all ease the pain. Another possible cure is the leaf of the horseradish or even the white fur from the inside of a broad bean pod. Vinegar is also claimed to ease the stinging sensations.

The sting of a nettle is by no means as painful as that of a wasp or bee and is rarely life-threatening, although there is always the likelihood of severe multiple stings if someone tumbles into a thick bed of these plants and, of course, some of us might be allergic to them. People suffering severely from nettle stings should not hesitate to seek medical advice.

Another factor is that nettles provide the breeding ground for several species of butterfly, including small tortoiseshells, red admirals, peacocks and commas, while a further 40 species of insect also depend on nettles for food and shelter. This, and the ability to conceal rubbish, makes the nettle a most useful plant.

Gathering in the hay continues to be fraught with risk due to our variable and mainly unpredictable weather, although there is not so much emphasis on the hay harvest as in years gone by.

Nonetheless, it remains a very important part of the rural summer, particularly as it provides both bedding and food for a range of livestock over the winter months.

I was reminded of some of the problems of harvesting the annual crop when I overheard a rather aged rustic telling a tale at one of our local markets. He was talking about his experiences while working on farms as a young lad at haytime and criticised one of his former bosses for "makkin' a reet piggin yar haytahme."

It seems that the farmer in question had overloaded a wagon full of hay and, on the journey from the field to the site of the proposed stack, much of the load had slipped off the wagon.

The wagon had not overturned, however. It was merely negotiating a rough lane full of holes and protruding boulders when it had become lop-sided and the upper section of the load had slipped off.

This sloppiness and lack of care while loading the hay seems to have been known as a piggin job. None of my dialect dictionaries places that interpretation on the word, a piggin more generally being known as a small drinking cup with a handle, sometimes made of wood and sometimes of metal.

A piggin was sometimes used to empty other containers and larger piggins could even be used as milking pails, the apparent emphasis being on the fact it had a single handle. This was sometimes little more than a short length of wood protruding from the side rather than a specially shaped handle.

However, there is a reference to piggin in Sir Alfred Pease's famous Dictionary of the North Riding Dialect. Although he offers the definition that refers to a wooden drinking cup, my edition of the book has been updated by the late Major J Fairfax-Blakeborough, who adds a note about piggin being a careless way of coping with the hay harvest.

It might refer to a load being carelessly roped or badly loaded and then overturning or spilling on rough roads. This is just like the tale I overheard in the market!

By all accounts, the person responsible for this kind of piggin job could expect to be teased and it was always considered to be something of an embarrassment to a person who was supposed to be highly skilled in such matters.

Why the term piggin is used for this kind of mishap is not known, although Blakeborough suggests it might be linked to a sow giving rapid birth to masses of piglets.

It is not widely known that the term "blue-stocking", a disparaging name for women who think they are intellectually superior, has early links with Thoralby in Wensleydale.

The lady known as the Queen of Blue Stockings used to live near Thoralby. She was Mrs Elizabeth Montague, nee Robinson, born at York in 1720.

When she moved to London in about 1750, she created the famous Blue Stocking Club which met in her house. Club members met to enjoy intellectual conversation and one of them, Dr Benjamin Stillingfleet, wore blue worsted stockings instead of the normal black.

A similar club met in Venice as early as 1400 when members wore coloured stockings and a similar society also met in Paris in 1590.