Mushrooms seem to appear from nowhere overnight, in circles, in graveyards and on rotting wood, then vanish. It is no wonder that every culture has woven magic around them. This lesson explores the folklore of fungi and what it can teach a magician. Explore the species in the Mushrooms & fungi tab of the Herbarium.
The golden rule: never eat a wild mushroom unless an experienced expert has identified it, in person, as safe. Photos, apps and books are not enough. Several of Britain's deadliest fungi look like ordinary edible mushrooms, and the old tests — peeling the cap, silver spoons, whether animals eat it — are all false. Occultum teaches the lore of fungi, not foraging.
What a mushroom is
A mushroom is only the fruit of a much larger organism. The fungus itself is the mycelium, a web of fine threads running through soil and wood, sometimes for hundreds of metres. Many fungi live in partnership with tree roots, trading minerals for sugars and linking trees together underground. Ecologists' phrase "the wood wide web" has become a favourite modern image of hidden connection — very much the language of correspondence and sympathy.
Fairy rings
When a fungus grows outward from a single point, it can produce a ring of mushrooms or a circle of darker grass. Across Europe these fairy rings were explained as the places where fairies danced. Step inside one, especially at night or on May Eve, and you might be drawn into the dance for what felt like a night but was really a hundred years. Other places blamed witches' dances, dragons resting, or the Devil churning butter. The traditional advice: walk round, not through, and never damage the ring.
For a magician, a fairy ring is a natural circle and a threshold — a place to sit beside, not to work in.
Toadstools and the fly agaric
The red, white-spotted fly agaric is everyone's picture of a toadstool, perched on by gnomes and fairies in Victorian illustration. Its name comes from its use, crumbled in milk, to stupefy flies. Peoples of Siberia used it in ritual, and modern writers have connected it — speculatively — to the sacred Soma of the Vedas and even to the red-and-white of Father Christmas. It is poisonous, and it belongs to the genus Amanita, which also contains the death cap and destroying angel, the deadliest mushrooms in Europe. Roman historians say the Emperor Claudius was murdered with a dish of mushrooms in 54 CE.
Ergot and the witch trials
Ergot is a fungus that infects rye. In the Middle Ages, eating bread made from infected grain caused epidemics of St Anthony's fire: burning pain, gangrene of the limbs, convulsions and hallucinations. In 1976 a researcher suggested that ergot poisoning might explain the fits of the accusers at Salem in 1692. Most historians now think social tensions explain Salem better, but ergot remains a sobering reminder that poisoning, hunger and fear can look a lot like bewitchment.
Folk charms from fungi
Fungi turned up in everyday folk magic:
- Cramp balls. The hard black fungus called King Alfred's cakes was carried in the pocket as a charm against cramp.
- Witches' butter. In Scandinavia, jelly fungi appearing on your gatepost meant a witch had bewitched the household. Stabbing or burning the fungus was thought to hurt the witch and break the spell — a clear example of sympathetic counter-magic.
- Jelly ear. Its old name, Judas's ear, comes from the legend that Judas hanged himself on an elder, the tree it loves.
- Puckfists. Puffballs were linked to Puck and the fairies, and their spores were used to staunch bleeding.
- Foxfire. Wood colonised by honey fungus glows faintly in the dark — perhaps one source of tales of fairy lights.
Fire and ink
Two fungi deserve a place in any magician's imagination. When Ötzi the Iceman died in the Alps 5,300 years ago, he carried tinder fungus, used to catch a spark and carry fire, and birch polypore, perhaps as medicine. And the shaggy ink cap dissolves within hours into a black liquid that can be strained and used as ink — a natural ink for drawing sigils and talismans, gathered from a common lawn mushroom. (Identify it with an expert first, and don't eat ink caps if you drink alcohol.)
"Magic mushrooms"
Psilocybin mushrooms were used in sacred ceremonies in Mexico long before Europeans arrived. In 1955 the banker and amateur mycologist R. Gordon Wasson took part in a velada led by the Mazatec healer María Sabina, and his 1957 article in Life magazine brought "magic mushrooms" to the world — and crowds of outsiders to her village, which she later regretted. Britain's native liberty cap contains the same compounds.
Today these mushrooms are at the centre of serious medical research and heated debate about entheogens, substances used to produce religious experience. But in the UK, as in many countries, possessing or supplying them is a serious crime (Class A). Their effects are unpredictable and can be overwhelming, especially for people with a personal or family history of mental illness, and people have been poisoned by picking deadly lookalikes. Occultum teaches their history. It does not teach or encourage their use, and none of the practices in this school require any substance at all.
Working with fungi safely
- Study and photograph fungi; draw them; join a local fungus group or guided walk.
- Use fungi as symbols: the fairy ring as a threshold, the mycelium as hidden connection, the mushroom's sudden appearance as manifestation after long, unseen work.
- Keep bought, edible mushrooms (field or chestnut mushrooms, shiitake) for any kitchen or offering magic.
- Wash your hands after handling wild fungi, and keep them away from children and pets.
Exercise
Go on a fungus walk in autumn — with a local group if you can. Photograph and draw at least three fungi without picking them, and look them up in the Herbarium or a field guide. In your journal, write about one as a magical symbol: what does it teach about hidden networks, decay and renewal, or sudden emergence?