Mystical Mushrooms
pine mushrooms
live a thousand years
in one autumn
Den Sutejo 1633-1698 (translated by Makoto Ueda)
Wild mushrooms have been getting bad press recently. A murder trial in the Australian country town Morewell has just commenced, but it all began back in 2023. Erin Patterson – known on social media as ‘the mushroom cook’ – has been accused of killing her in-laws with a homemade Beef Wellington laced with death cap mushrooms.
The accused has pleaded not guilty to three murder charges and one alleged murder. The trial will have a 12 person jury and they will deliberate over a period of about six weeks.
Ever since I read, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, I’ve had a thing for exotic mushrooms. I was about six when I first came across the notorious Alice Liddell, disappearing down the rabbit hole into a fantastical world. The scene where she comes across the caterpillar sucking on a hookah – while seated on a sinister looking mushroom – really tickled me.
The caterpillar was imperious in manner and rude to Alice, “Who are YOU?” I was very taken with the notion that if you ate a chunk of the caterpillar’s mushroom, you’d be able to grow or shrink at will. I’ve since discovered that premium champagne can sometimes produce a similar effect.
A marvellous book on mushrooms was first published in 1925, The Romance of the Fungus World by mycologists R.T. Rolfe and F.W. Rolfe. Between 1925-2014, eighteen editions were published, including a 1974 edition featuring a trippy purple cover with an illustration of the caterpillar from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. (photo above).
It perfectly suited the decadent era of LSD, hallucinogenics, Pink Floyd, David Bowie and exotic smoking drugs imbibed from hookahs and bongs.
The wonderful thing about The Romance of the Fungus World is that it seriously examines the gastronomic delights offered by mushrooms, their medicinal uses and the effects of poisonous fungi. Yet this scientific information sits comfortably with the esoteric, mystical side of fungi.
A whole chapter is dedicated to fungi lore and mythology: predominately the association between fungi and devils, witches, elves and fairies.
Toadstools in a circular formation (known as fairy rings) have numerous mythologies explaining their existence. One ancient story has it that after the wee people had danced around in a circle, toadstools grew on the grass where they’d danced and were used by elves and fairies to rest their tired feet.
An old English West-country superstition held that if a maiden wanted to improve her complexion, all she had to do was to nip outside on a May morning and rub dew from the grass all over her face. However, it was imperative that the maiden didn’t intrude inside any fairy rings, for the wee people might get angry and take their revenge by giving her a hideous rash.
Strange things happened to folk who were foolish enough to step into the fairy rings. In Germany it was once believed that the bare portion of the ring was the place where a fiery dragon had rested in his nocturnal wanderings.
The dedication in the 1925 edition is quite lovely:
To the memory of George Edward Massee … to whom the Authors are indebted for their first glimpses of the Fungus World, and in whose company, in field and by fireside, they spent many delightful hours.
Photograph: Cover of The Romance of the Fungus World (1974 edition) by R.T. Rolfe & F.W. Rolfe