In Fairyland or On Mushrooms?
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Here’s the thing Reader, I LOVE a research rabbit hole. When I’m learning about something new, my mind runs down every possible path to find out what might be related or connected to the idea I started with. For example, as I mentioned last time, I started researching fairy rings after watching an episode of Bluey (the Australian kid's cartoon). My first question was: do fairy rings make you dance? (As the episode of Bluey suggested). The answer was Yes! Entering a fairy ring will cause you to dance until you drop from exhaustion, die, or are rescued. That detail led me down the rabbit hole of real, historical dancing plagues in Europe, where people literally danced for days until they dropped. The information on dancing is enough to fill an entire podcast episode. (Coming soon!) But then I returned to my original thought of the fairy ring and what it is–physically. A fairy ring is a circle of mushrooms, and over the past two weeks, I’ve been immersed in the magical kingdom of mushrooms! The anatomy and biology of fairy rings is going to be a separate podcast episode, but here is a teaser. > Did you know that mushrooms are just the bloom of certain fungi species? > And that fungi are not plants but in their own kingdom? > And, that the fungi kingdom is more closely related to animals than it is to plants? I have so many discoveries to share on the podcast next month, but I’ll leave you with this interesting thought. One of the most iconic mushrooms in literature is the fly agaric – you know, the vibrant red-topped mushroom with white spots?
It makes Mario grow bigger and provides homes for smurfs. It’s also highly potent and, when ingested, can lead to blackouts, temporary comas, and powerful hallucinations. It’s also commonly found in Northern Europe, which begs the question – did our ancestors consume this mushroom and assume they were off with the fairies when they awoke in strange places with no memory of recent events? More on this coming soon! If you’d like more behind-the-scenes facts like these, subscribe and listen to my podcast: The Folklore Forum Until next week, Natalie Guttormsson |
