Living their lives in the shadow of dominant male authority, women in the periphery of the 19th and 20th centuries largely remained marginalized, unable to have a say in decisions that were exclusively the right of men. "The Old Women Who Gather Nettles" is a theatrical research project that began in March 2023 and engages with the folk expertise of elderly women in cooking and magical and healing practices. In the Thessalian region, where the research is focused, women, in addition to other tasks with which they contributed to the economic production of the family and community as field workers, also had the responsibility of feeding their family members, always within the household. Thus, they developed a secret code, a latent power, based on the use of magic and herbal expertise, the so-called "practical" skills, the ability to "remove the evil eye" and other skills, through the use of materials they used in cooking, herbs and greens from the area, oil, water, and flour. This edition includes the theatrical text of the performance, as well as a theoretical framework of folk magic in the Greek area and its connection to the feminine element, from antiquity to the magical-religious practices of the customary code of later times: "The female expertise of herbs and their connection to magical practices through ingestion (mixing with food) or drinking (magical potion) is a motif often encountered in ancient Greek poetry. [...] It is understood that in Byzantine society, magical practices associated either with divination or with healing or harm through the use of herbs and potions were commonly accepted across all classes and operated alongside the dogmatism of Christian faith. [...] Erotic pharmacy was a fundamental part of women's actions in magical practices during Byzantine times. [...] The category of customs, also, that maintains an active role is that of funerary customs," notes, among others, Konstantinos Dellas, author and director of the performance.