Fairy ring
A fairy ring, also known as fairy circle, elf circle, elf ring
Fairy rings are the subject of much folklore and myth worldwide—particularly in Western Europe. They are often seen as hazardous or dangerous places, and linked with witches or the Devil in folklore. Conversely, they can sometimes be linked with good fortune.
Genesis
The
There are two theories regarding the process involved in creating fairy rings. One states that the fairy ring is begun by a
Necrotic or rapid growth zones
One of the manifestations of fairy ring growth is a necrotic zone—an area in which grass or other plant life has withered or died. During a dry year, these zones are caused by the mycelia, which coat the roots of grasses and other herbs in
Long-term observations of fairy rings on Shillingstone Hill in Dorset, England, further suggested that the cycle depended on the continuous presence of rabbits. Chalky soils on higher elevations in the counties of Wiltshire and Dorset in southern England used to support many meadow-type fairy rings. Rabbits crop grass short in open areas and produce nitrogen-rich droppings. Mushrooms need more soil nitrogen than grass does. A ring can start from only a few spores from which the mycelium develops; the fruiting bodies of the mushrooms appearing only later when sufficient mycelial mass has been generated to support them. Subsequent generations of fungi grow only outward because the parent generations have depleted their local nitrogen levels. Meanwhile, rabbits keep cropping the grass, but do not eat the fungi, allowing them to grow through their competition to tower, relatively, above the grass. By the time a circle of mushrooms reaches about 6 metres (20 ft) in diameter, rabbit droppings have replenished the nitrogen levels near the centre of the circle, and a secondary ring may start to grow inside the first. [citation needed]
Soil analysis of soil containing mycelium from a wood blewit (
Types
There are two generally recognised types of fairy ring fungus. Those found in the woods are called tethered because they are formed by
Species involved
About 60 mushroom species can grow in the fairy ring pattern.[6] The best known is the edible Scotch bonnet (Marasmius oreades), commonly known as the fairy ring champignon.
One of the largest rings ever found is near Belfort in northeastern France. Formed by Infundibulicybe geotropa, it is thought to be about 300 metres (980 ft) in diameter and over 700 years old.[7] On the South Downs in southern England, Calocybe gambosa has formed huge fairy rings that also appear to be several hundred years old.[8]
List of species
- Agaricus arvensis[9]
- Agaricus campestris[10]
- Agaricus praerimosus[6]
- Agrocybe praecox
- Amanita muscaria[11]
- Amanita phalloides
- Amanita rubescens
- Bovista dermoxantha[12]
- Calocybe gambosa[13]
- Calvatia cyathiformis[6]
- Calvatia gigantea[14]
- Cantharellus cibarius[15]
- Clitocybe dealbata[16]
- Clitocybe nebularis[17]
- Clitocybe nuda[4]
- Clitocybe rivulosa[16]
- Chlorophyllum molybdites
- Chlorophyllum rhacodes
- Cortinarius bellus[18]
- Cortinarius glaucopus[19]
- Cortinarius violaceus[20]
- Cyathus stercoreus[21]
- Disciseda subterranea[6]
- Entoloma sinuatum[22]
- Gomphus clavatus[23]
- Hygrophorus agathosmus [24]
- Hygrophorus pudorinus[25]
- Hygrophorus russula[26]
- Infundibulicybe geotropa[27]
- Lepista sordida[28]
- Leucopaxillus giganteus[29]
- Lycoperdon curtisii[12]
- Lycoperdon perlatum[30]
- Macrolepiota procera[14]
- Marasmius oreades[6]
- Paralepista flaccida[31]
- Sarcodon imbricatus[32]
- Saproamanita thiersii[33]
- Suillus luteus[34]
- Tricholoma album[35]
- Tricholoma orirubens[36]
- Tricholoma pardinum[37]
- Tricholoma matsutake
- Tricholoma terreum[14]
- Tuber melanosporum[6]
Cultural references
Oral tradition and folklore
A great deal of folklore surrounds fairy rings.
The
Many folk beliefs generally paint fairy rings as dangerous places, best avoided.
A traditional Scottish rhyme sums up the danger of such places:
He wha tills the fairies' green
Nae luck again shall hae :
And he wha spills the fairies' ring
Betide him want and wae.
For weirdless days and weary nights
Are his till his deein' day.
But he wha gaes by the fairy ring,
Nae dule nor pine shall see,
And he wha cleans the fairy ring
An easy death shall dee.[63]
Numerous legends focus on mortals entering a fairy ring—and the consequences. One superstition is that anyone who steps into an empty fairy ring will die at a young age.[64] A 20th-century tradition from Somerset calls the fairy ring a "galley-trap" and says that a murderer or thief who walks in the ring will be hanged.[65] Most often, someone who violates a fairy perimeter becomes invisible to mortals outside and may find it impossible to leave the circle. Often, the fairies force the mortal to dance to the point of exhaustion, death, or madness.[64][66] In Welsh tales, fairies actively try to lure mortals into their circles to dance with them.[44] A tale from the Cambrian Mountains of Wales, current in the 19th century, describes a mortal's encounter with a fairy ring:
... he saw the Tylwyth Teg, in appearance like tiny soldiers, dancing in a ring. He set out for the scene of revelry, and soon drew near the ring where, in a gay company of males and females, they were footing it to the music of the harp. Never had he seen such handsome people, nor any so enchantingly cheerful. They beckoned him with laughing faces to join them as they leaned backward almost falling, whirling round and round with joined hands. Those who were dancing never swerved from the perfect circle; but some were clambering over the old cromlech, and others chasing each other with surprising swiftness and the greatest glee. Still others rode about on small white horses of the most beautiful form ... All this was in silence, for the shepherd could not hear the harps, though he saw them. But now he drew nearer to the circle, and finally ventured to put his foot in the magic ring. The instant he did this, his ears were charmed with strains of the most melodious music he had ever heard.[67]
Entering the ring on
Freedom from a fairy ring often requires outside intervention. A tactic from early 20th-century Wales is to cast wild
Mortals who have danced with the fairies are rarely safe after being saved from their enthrallment. They often find that what seemed to be but a brief foray into fairyland was much longer in the mortal realm, possibly weeks or years.[64][75] The person rescued from the fairy ring may have no memory of their encounter with the sprites, as in a story from Anglesea recorded in 1891.[76] In most tales, the saved interlopers face a grim fate. For example, in a legend from Carmarthenshire, recorded by Sikes, a man is rescued from a fairy ring only to crumble to dust.[74] In a tale from Mathavarn, Llanwrin Parish, a fairy-ring survivor moulders away when he eats his first bite of food.[72] Another vulnerability seems to be iron; in a tale from the Aberystwyth region, a touch from the metal causes a rescued woman to disappear.[76]
Some legends assert that the only safe way to investigate a fairy ring is to run around it nine times. This affords the ability to hear the fairies dancing and frolicking underground.[58] According to a 20th-century tradition of Northumberland, this must be done under a full moon, and the runner must travel in the direction of the sun; to go widdershins allows the fairies to place the runner under their sway. To circle the ring a tenth time is foolhardy and dangerous.[55] Keightley recorded a similar tradition from Northumberland in 1828: "The children constantly run this number [nine times], but nothing will induce them to venture a tenth run."[77] A story from early 20th century England says that a mortal can see the sprites without fear if a friend places a foot on that of the person stepping beyond the circle's perimeter.[78] Another superstition says that wearing a hat backward can confuse the fairies and prevent them from pulling the wearer into their ring.[79]
Although they strongly associate doom, some legends paint fairy circles as places of fertility and fortune. Welsh folk believe that mountain sheep that eat the grass of a fairy ring flourish, and crops sown from such a place prove more bountiful than those from normal land.
Literature
Fairy rings have been featured in the works of European authors, playwrights, and artists since the 13th century. In his
... you demi-puppets that
By moonshine do the green sour ringlets make,
Whereof the ewe not bites, and you whose pastime
Is to make midnight mushrooms, that rejoice
To hear the solemn curfew ...[86]
Shakespeare's contemporary Thomas Randolph speaks of fairy rings in his Amyntas, or the Impossible Dowry (1638), and Michael Drayton describes one in Nymphidia: The Court of Fairy:[84]
And in their courses make that round
In meadows and in marshes found,
Of them so called the Fairy Ground,
Of which they have the keeping.[87]
Fairy imagery became especially popular in the
Art
Fairy circles have appeared in European artwork since at least the 18th century. For example, William Blake painted Oberon, Titania and Puck with Fairies Dancing, depicting a scene from Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, around 1785,[90] and Daniel Maclise painted Faun and the Fairies around 1834. Images of fairies dancing in circles became a favourite trope of painters in the Victorian period. On the one hand, artists were genuinely interested in the culture such imagery represented, and on the other, fairies could be depicted as titillating nudes and semi-nudes without offending Victorian mores, which made them a popular subject of art collectors. Examples of Victorian fairy-ring paintings include Come unto these Yellow Sands (1842) by Richard Dadd and Reconciliation of Titania and Oberon (1847) by Joseph Noel Paton.[91]
-
Faun and the Fairies (1834) by Daniel Maclise
-
Come unto These Yellow Sands (1842) by Richard Dadd. Images of nude and semi-nude fairies dancing in rings became popular during the Victorian era.
-
Although the fairy realm may be seen as benevolent, on the other hand, according to many folk tales, an invasion of the Fairy ring is perilous for men.[55] Fairy Rings by Richard Doyle, 1875.
-
Woodcut of a fairy-circle from a 17th-century chapbook
Video games and film
In the MMORPG RuneScape, as well as its offshoot Old School RuneScape, fairy rings function as a magical transportation network. Each fairy ring is identified by a three-letter code, and players can teleport between them. In-game, fairy rings were created by actual fairies for their own use—players learn about the fairies and gain the ability to use fairy rings over the course of a series of quests.
In The Spiderwick Chronicles (2008) film a giant fairy ring surrounds and protects the house from goblins.[92]
Quark, a modification of the sandbox game Minecraft, features fairy rings as a world generation feature containing buried valuables for the player character to excavate.[93]
See also
Explanatory notes
References
Citations
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- ^ Keightley 1850, p. 81.
- ^ a b Ripley & Dana 1859.
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- ^ a b Bennett 1997, p. 110.
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- ^ Shakespeare 1918, p. 14, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Act II, Scene I.
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- ^ Silver 1999, p. 153.
- ^ Skelton 1990, p. 181.
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- ^ Silver 1999, p. 230, note 20.
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Cited texts
- Bennett, Margaret (1997) [1991]. "Balquhidder Revisited: Fairylore in the Scottish Highlands, 1690–1990". In Narváez, Peter (ed.). The Good People: New Fairylore Essays. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky. pp. 94–115. OCLC 37115043.
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- Briggs, Katharine; Tongue, Ruth L. (1968) [1965]. "17. Why the Donkey is Safe". Folktales of England. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. pp. 50–51. OCLC 619635358.
- ISBN 978-1146914680
- Cheviot, Andrew (1896). Proverbs, Proverbial Expressions, and Popular Rhymes of Scotland. Paisley and London: A. Gardner. OCLC 644152104.
- Cielo, Astra (1918). Signs, omens and superstitions. New York: G. Sully & Company. OCLC 870888780.
- Daniels, Cora Linn; Stevens, C. M. (1903). Encyclopaedia of Superstitions, Folklore, and the Occult Sciences of the World. Vol. 3. Chicago, Milwaukee: J.H. Yewdale & Sons Co. OCLC 560374305.
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- Franklin, Anna (2002) [2000]. The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Fairies. London: Paper Tiger. OCLC 635808806.
- Gwyndaf, Robin (1997) [1991]. "Fairylore: Memorates and Legends from Welsh Oral Tradition". In Narváez, Peter (ed.). The Good People: New Fairylore Essays. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky. pp. 155–195. OCLC 37115043.
- Haas, Hans (1969). Leutscher, Alfred (ed.). The Young Specialist looks at Fungi. London: Burke. OCLC 227433.
- Hall, Alaric (2007). "Female Elves and Beautiful Elves". Elves in Anglo-Saxon England: Matters of Belief, Health, Gender and Identity. Woodbridge, Suffolk, UK; Rochester, NY: Boydell Press. pp. 75–95. OCLC 637270098.
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- McPherson, Joseph MacKenzie (2003) [1929]. Primitive Beliefs in the Northeast of Scotland. S.l: R.A. Kessinger. OCLC 1110818805.
- Morgan, Adrian (1995). Toads and Toadstools: The Natural History, Folklore, and Cultural Oddities of a Strange Association. Berkeley, CA: Celestial Arts. OCLC 1151413771.
- Nilsson, Sven; Persoon, Olle (1978). Fungi of Northern Europe. Vol. 2 : Gill-fungi. London: Penguin Book. OCLC 912455150.
- Paton, Lucy Allen (1903). Studies in the Fairy Mythology of Arthurian Romance. Boston: Ginn. ISBN 978-1176510319
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- Radford, Edwin; Radford, Mona Augusta (1996) [1946]. Hole, Christina (ed.). The Encyclopedia of Superstitions. New York: Barnes & Noble. p. 157. OCLC 36673179.
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- Silver, Carole G. (1999). Strange and Secret Peoples: Fairies and Victorian Consciousness. New York: Oxford University Press. OCLC 559912687.
- Skelton, Robin (1990). Earth, Air, Fire, Water: pre-Christian and pagan elements in British songs, rhymes and ballads. London: Arkana. OCLC 1033569216.
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Further reading
- Nicholson, William (March 1798). "On Fairy Rings". Journal of Natural Philosophy, Chemistry, and the Arts: 546–7.
- OCLC 681105312.
External links
- Media related to Fairy rings at Wikimedia Commons