The Hidden Magic of Mushrooms

         I think it’s time for me to admit that I dearly, avidly love mushrooms. They are all over my house: my bed throw pillows are a pattern of various mushrooms, they sprout from a wreath on my wall, felted specimens are in a terrarium in my living room, and I even have faux shelf mushrooms growing on my walls. Although I’ve always found them charming, and knew that they were intrinsically associated with the faeries I love so much, I had little personal experience with them “in the wild” so to speak, until I started going to the woods more often. In a vaguely symbolic sense, the forest has been important to my heart and my magic for many years. Of course, the woods are enchanted, and faeries can always be found there, if one knows where to look. But…I almost never actually went to the woods.

Mushrooms sprouting all over my house!

            All of this changed three years ago when I decided to try my hand at falling into a newfangled social media site called “Instagram.” I know much has been said about the dangers of faux reality in a curated Instagram feed, but I personally am forever grateful for my enthusiasm to create a visually pleasing and magical account: it is what got me into the habit of, and made me fall in love with, retreating into the forest on a regular basis year-round. And in doing so, I discovered new passions and new loves. One of the biggest? Mushrooms.

A ring of mushrooms is a sign that fey revelry has either just taken place, or is still happening. And you should never, ever under any circumstances jump into a faerie ring, lest you be swept up in their dance and lose track of time for years that pass like seconds, perhaps lost to the mortal world forever. (Because of this, and the fact that many of us want to be taken away from this world into a magical one, a few amusing memes online have popped up joking about how people nowadays are seeking out fairy rings and jumping into them on purpose)

Thanks to Fae Propaganda Department for all of these collage images.

            A web search on mushroom folklore associated with faeries immediately brings up a plethora of pages explaining the magic of mushroom rings. Finding information about the association of fae folk with individually-appearing mushrooms is a bit more of a challenge. In visual depictions, faeries are often seen hanging around near the classic amanita muscaria, with its red cap and white freckles. And children’s story books are filled with tiny fairy houses made from a mushroom with a door and windows jauntily carved into its stalk. Like so much of fairy lore, it seems that the Victorian and Edwardian picture book is largely responsible for the pairing of mushrooms and faeries in today’s popular culture (besides the older stories of fairy rings). Further discovery of earlier mushroom fairy folklore is a topic I will have to research much more, since it seems to be far more elusive than I realized, much like the fruiting fungi itself.

Artist unknown.

            Beyond the folklore, the reality of the mushroom is so surreal it seems like magic even if you learn about the science behind it. Mushrooms multiply in lightning storms. They breathe (taking in oxygen and releasing carbon dioxide). When wind isn’t available to spread their spores, some species create their own wind. Those aforementioned magical fairy circles of mushrooms all grow from one singular fungus growing multiple mycelium, which eventually pop out of the ground in a perfect circular shape that grows larger and larger with the years. Because the mycelium network of this fungi is underground, and only emerges as mushrooms above the ground when conditions are right, it means that there is no way to predict where and when they will appear. And it also means that the mycelium that emerge as mushrooms could be hidden in the ground under our feet at any time. One mycelium network in Oregon covers 3.7 square miles. They are literally the underground veins of the forest, assisting in decomposition.

            The category “mushroom” is as broad as the category “mammal,” with a boundless variety of species that differ as broadly as a zebra does from a mountain lion. Just compare a bolete with an earthstar, a puffball with a morel. And they are incredibly ephemeral. When journeying on my favorite forest trail for mushroom searches, I often find only shriveled traces remaining of specimens I photographed only a few days earlier.

All photos c. Grace Nuth from my various forest trips.

            Yes, I have long known that mushrooms were associated with the fey, but now that I go to the woods every week, they have become personal guideposts. You see, I have found that I absolutely love walking the woods so slowly any long-distance hiker would pull their hair out with frustration. I’ll gaze around me, admiring the overall view of the trail. And then I will start to watch my feet, both sides of the path, any fallen trees that look like they might harbor a mystery guest. I’ll veer off the path, dodging thorns and tangled vines to see if the pale white speckles I saw in the distance were a patch of sunlight or a beautiful group of Coprinellus micaceus.

            And by the way, I may have used the fancy name for a mushroom above, but I have to admit I know very little about identifying them. I may be elated when I find a new type, and use my mushroom identification pamphlet gifted to me by a friend, but I would never try eating anything I found in the woods: both because I am not at all confident in my IDs, and also because I prefer to leave what I find right where I found it, to bring a touch of daily magic to whoever else might wander down that path.

All photos c. Grace Nuth from my various forest trips.

            My feelings about this mysterious scavenger hunt are well summarized by California forager Stephanie Fousek: “[Searching for mushrooms] reminds me that you have to be in a space of openness and gratitude. Mushrooms don’t yield themselves to your desires. I’m grateful every time I see one.” There have been many trips to the woods where I have come back metaphorically empty-handed, with not a single photo of a mushroom captured on my phone. Although I have started to know their habits (near water, tucked under logs, after a rainfall), they also sometimes show up where or when I never would have expected them. I’ve laughed out loud with joy to find mushrooms surprising me, most recently, one tucked into a hollow of a log bathed in shadows, veiled by greenery, as if playing a game of hide-and-go-seek.

            I’ve also started noticing another theme in where and how I tend to find mushrooms. When I take a moment to stop and sit or stand on the path and just be present in the woods for a moment, as my gaze skims the world around me, I often will see a beautiful mushroom I otherwise would have completely missed discovering. And I also find them when I pay attention to other wonders of the forest: a forest fey disguised as a log covered in moss with a tuft of grass on his head may agree to pose for a photo, and as a reward for my observation, I’ll move my gaze a few feet away and find a beautiful patch of fungi. Or the gap between branches of a shrub will form a perfect portal to Faerie, and I’ll look at the grass in front of it to see mushrooms speckling the ground there.

            To search for mushrooms is a magic in and of itself. It is an interactive journey in which they hide, and I seek. They wait, I show respect to the woods, and they reveal themselves. I always knew that mushrooms were associated with the Realm of Faerie, and now I know why. To find a mushroom is to find a piece of hidden magic.

All photos c. Grace Nuth from my various forest trips.