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| Fairy Rings, fact, fiction or folklore? Dear
Judy, Hi
Elspeth, "fairy circles" +Namibia |
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| As I have the greatest faith in New Scientist use the following link to get their report of the report: http://www.virtualmuseum.ca/Exhibitions/Mushroom/English/index.html “The three main theories to explain the origins of the mysterious 'fairy circles' of Namibia have just been dismissed, following an in-depth study by South African researchers. "They still remain a mystery," says Gretel van Rooyen, a botanist at the University of Pretoria, who headed the team conducting the study.” As you can see by the first two sentences of their article quoted above – the cause of the circles is still a mystery. The researchers have discounted the three main rational contenders - termites, radioactive soil and toxic debris left in the soil by Euphorbia damarana, the poisonous milkbush plant. So I suspect that they have to go back to the drawing board and find another scientific reason for the Namibian fairy rings. The fairy rings found in Ireland and the United Kingdom [and over much of Europe] are caused by fungi. In folklore in England they were places where fairies come to dance. The mushrooms around the perimeter were seats where the sprites could rest after their exertions. People in rural England claimed to have seen fairies dancing at fairy rings as recently as the start of the twentieth century. Folk tales also mention "the belief that dire consequences await anyone foolhardy enough to enter a fairy ring. Trespassers would be struck blind or lame, or even disappear to become slaves in the fairies' underground realm. In Wales the rings were associated with fertility and doom, and anyone foolish enough to plow one up would incur the wrath of the fairies". It was also widely believed that if animals grazed within a fairy ring their milk would putrefy. On the positive side, fairy rings were said to bring good luck to houses built in fields where they occur. In another tradition, the rings were sites of buried treasure, but there was a catch-the treasure could only be retrieved with the help of fairies or witches. A really good web site for fungi and folklore information is: http://www.virtualmuseum.ca/Exhibitions/Mushroom/English/index.html For our French readers they also run a francophone copy of the web site, as it is Canadian based. Now crop circles are another matter. A lot of space has been dedicated to them but in recent years people have admitted to making them. So you can believe that they are made by aliens, flying saucers or people. If you want to explore some of the theories surrounding them try the following web site: http://www.cropcircleresearch.com/index2.html I
hope this has been of help to you regarding your questions. |
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