Fairy rings are circles or arcs of fungi
that seem to magically spring up overnight on the lawn, in a forest or on moorland;
there is a lot of folklore and mythology connected to them from all over the
world, some good and some bad but all fascinating.
It
is generally thought that a fairy ring appears when a fairy, pixie, or elf is
present, in European folklore they are the location of gateways into fairy
kingdoms, and are places where elves gather and dance, such ideas date back to
at least the early medieval period.
Welsh and Manx mythology removes dancing
from the legend but states that a fairy ring will spring up over an underground
fairy village. In Austria however, the rings were put down to the activity of flying
dragons; legend has it that if a dragon created such a circle, nothing but
toadstools would be able to grow in the spot for seven whole years.
Whatever
culture tales of fairy rings come from, one factor is common throughout and
that is that it is a dangerous thing for a mortal human to enter a fairy ring
and many legends warn strictly against trying. It is an especially bad idea on
May eve or Hallowe’en, should a human violate the ring he would anger the
fairies and thus be cursed. A mortal who has entered the ring may become
invisible to other mortals and never be seen again once back outside the ring,
the fairies may also force the mortal to dance to the point of exhaustion or
even death, that is if he didn’t go mad first.
According to legends, the only safe way to investigate
a fairy ring is to run around it in the direction of the sun nine times under a
full moon – eight times or ten times will not do. By doing this a mortal can
hear the fairies dancing underground and no harm will come to him. The ring will
slowly disappear without trace in less than a week, but if the mortal waits for
an elf to return to the ring, he will be able to see it, although must never
try to capture it.
