Nature keeps many secrets and mysteries in its pantries. One of them is associated with such a mysterious phenomenon as the witch's rings.
I won't be mistaken if I say that almost everyone who has ever gone out into the forest with a basket has seen amazing circles of mushrooms. You go out to the edge, and the following picture appears before your gaze: the mushrooms seem to be lined up in a circle, like children around a Christmas tree, and inside this circle the grass does not grow.
Popular superstitions attribute this disposition of representatives of the mushroom kingdom to the action of witches. Mushrooms grow in place of the magic circle outlined by the witch. Standing inside which she casts a spell: "Whoever eats a white, combustible stone alatyr, he will overcome my conspiracy," she also arranges a dashing dance or hides a treasure from prying eyes, therefore grass does not grow there. It is easy to find the witch's rings, but the treasure left by the witch will be found only by those who rub their eyes with a tear-grass that blooms once a year on Midsummer's Day, or "against which the scythe will break the grass on Midsummer's night, that tear is the grass."
The witch's rings have a strange, mysterious appearance, thus giving rise to unprecedented legends. Did the witches really plant the mushrooms here in the right circles?
This phenomenon has a precise scientific basis. Biologists are tearing the mystery out of this mystery and giving an accurate answer.
The spore of the fungus grows into the mycelium-mycelium - thin filaments, barely visible to the naked eye. It is on it that the leg and cap develop - the fruiting bodies of the mushrooms. The mycelium radiates from the spore radially, like rays from the sun, this explains the fact that the grown mushrooms stand in a ring. The lifespan of the mycelium is very short-lived and it quickly decays. The vegetation inside the circle dies off as the mycelium absorbs large amounts of nutrients from the soil. Competition for minerals and water of fungal filaments and green plants leads to the death of the latter. Between the fruit bodies, the mycelium is alive in a circle, which also prevents the growth of forest grasses. Every year the process of dying off of the mycelium, due to insufficient nutrition, continues, and the circle expands by 10-15 centimeters.
Raincoats, meadow mushrooms, ryadovki, champignons, and even fly agarics form unusual witch rings.
This belief about the tricks of witches is widespread not only in our country. Albert rings are called in the Tyrolean Alps. A serpent with a tail of fire - albert - living in crevices among the rocks in the summer months, especially during a star shower, moves to another place. The serpent, flying over the valleys, burns out the grassy vegetation with its whirling tail. And only mushrooms can grow on the scorched earth.
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Swedish peasants consider elves to be responsible for the formation of circles. Little people, dancing at night, trample the grass. If, unknowingly, a person comes close to these dance floors, he will "fall ill with a disease called elfenblester, which is especially dangerous for children." Anyone who sees the elves dancing in a circle at night, they offer to start dancing with them. Many fearless knights agreed, and in the morning their lifeless bodies were found in the center of the ring.
In England, round dances are led by fairies, mushrooms grow in places where sorceresses have walked.
In Germany, it is believed that rings are gathering sites for witches. It is there that they gather to then embark on the night sabbath.
Grazing cows on pastures where witch circles were found was considered taboo for Dutch peasants. They believed in devils who churned butter at night in a mysterious circle. And if a cow gets into it, then the milk will disappear forever! More literate city dwellers suggested the formation of rings from lightning strikes.
But now scientists say for sure that there is no mysticism in witch or magic rings. One less mystery.
Having found mushrooms in the forest, growing in the form of a carousel, be sure to collect them in a basket, because they are believed to bring happiness.