There I was, checking my blog's URL on Google to make sure that I added it correctly to my Smashwords Author Page profile. While I was at it, I glanced in curiousity over the other websites proffered for the search term "nine times circling" to see what else the search words had retrieved. And I noted an amusing but pertinent Wikipedia reference - to fairy rings!
I quote:
"Some legends assert that the only safe way to investigate a fairy ring is to run around it nine times. This affords the ability to hear the fairies dancing and frolicking underground."
What fun! A different take on circling nine times and an underground realm. Different, but also appropriate -
My name, Fiona, means "fair, fey or fairy" - and mycology (the study of mushrooms and other fungi) became a passion of mine as an undergraduate at the University of Natal in Pietermaritzburg.
(I still like fungi - here is a little group, nestled in an old tree trunk,
that we noticed on one of our walks round our suburb)
A magical moment for me during the early days of our mycology course occurred during our first class field trip to collect fungal specimens from a local forest. I discovered a fairy ring of Coral Fungi everyone else had just wandered past. As one might expect from the name, Coral fungi have beautiful white delicately branched fruiting bodies that look like coral - and some are known as Fairy Clubs.
Sadly, our mycology lectures were not all-inclusive. Had I only known to circle the fairy ring nine times, I too might have heard the fairies dancing and frolicking underground!
The fungi I found were most likely Lentaria micheneri, which grow on leaf litter. Surreal when seen.
Kuo, M. (2009, May). Lentaria micheneri. Retrieved from the MushroomExpert.Com
Well, there you have it - rings and circles of interconnectivity.
No comments:
Post a Comment