fairy ring

1. a ring of dark luxuriant vegetation in grassy ground corresponding to the edge of an underground fungal mycelium: popularly associated with the dancing of fairies: seasonally marked by a ring of mushrooms

2. short for fairy ring mushroom Marasmius oreades, a dainty buff-coloured edible basidiomycetous fungus, characteristically forming rings in grassland

Collins Discovery Encyclopedia, 1st edition © HarperCollins Publishers 2005

A man is pulled back before he enters a fairy circle. Drawing by T. H. Thomas, 1880. Courtesy Fortean Picture Library.

Fairy Ring

(religion, spiritualism, and occult)

A darkened green ring that sometimes appears in a patch of grass, in lawns and meadows. It is caused by the enrichment of the soil by the mycelium (spawn) of certain fungi, which radiates outward from the center. The ring gradually increases in size, year by year, with mushrooms appearing around the perimeter. Rings up to more than two hundred feet in diameter have been recorded.

In popular folklore these circles of mushrooms, or darkened grass, are the rings in which fairies meet and dance. In many areas it is considered dangerous to fall asleep within the circle, for the fairies will take exception to their space being invaded.

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References in periodicals archive

Tolkien's earliest such safe haven appeared in a 1915 poem "You & Me and the Cottage of Lost Play" where "down a warm and winding lane" dreaming children could be found tumbling, gardening, "dancing fairy rings / And weaving pearly daisy-strings, / Or chasing golden bees" (The Book of Lost Tales, Part One [BLTI] 28, 29).

The Hobbit and the Father Christmas Letters

Fairy rings are one thing in nature, another in folklore.

Road to the golden age: Thoreau's old Carlisle road

The ring of infection spreads out over many years to form the typical fairy ring. The decomposition of this material causes a release of stored nitrogen that then stimulates the ring of infected grass to grow faster that the grass around it.

Look out for the fairies in your garden; Notebook: Best of the Bunch Fairy rings

The Fairy Ring is even more striking through my 10-inch reflector, which better shows the stars' colors.

The graceful swan: Cygnus is a wonderland for deep-sky observers

The tasty Fairy Ring Mushrooms (Marasmius oreades) are also found on lawns.

Element(s) of surprise: mushrooms

Symptoms: Fairy rings are circles approximately 3 to 8 ft.

First aid for your lawn: 5 remedies for your hurting turf

I was particularly interested in the knight concerned, Sir Richard Dallingridge, whose grey horse crops the grass outside the fairy ring as he talks, the helmet on the saddle-bow clinking as the horse jerks his head.

Castles in the Air

Yet this classification also includes the commercial mushroom Agaricus bisporus, as well as its wild relative, Agaricus campestris the oyster mushroom, Pleurotus ostreatus, and the fairy ring mushroom.

Identifying the fungus among us

A KNOWN as a fairy ring, it is a symptom of fungus growing in the soil and will eventually kill off your grass.

A & Q; Gardening

The pixies, gnomes and fairies have come to play in Pixies Dell, Their dancing in a fairy ring, so happy and so gay, They'll dance until the break of dawn, then softly fade away, You'll know that you have seen them, as you waken from your sleep, For you have got a special dream, that's yours alone to keep, For now you've seen the fairies, the pixies, gnomes as well, Just listen very hard at night, you'll hear the tinkling bell.

Poets' corner

"The Fairy Ring Champignon is a gorgeous tasting mushroom, but it does have a poisonous look alike.

GREEN SCENE; GROW Top talk

The Fairy Ring: Or Elsie and Frances Fool the World (A True Story).

Losure, Mary. The Fairy Ring: Or Elsie and Frances Fool the World (A True Story)