The Bannocks and Shoshonees of the Rocky Mountains eat mushrooms,—“the kind that grows on a cottonwood stump; they know that some kinds are bad.”—(Interview with the Bannocks and Shoshonees, through the interpreters, Joe and Charlie Rainey, at Fort Hall, Idaho, 1881.)
The Indians above mentioned had no knowledge of any dance in connection with the mushroom or fungus.
XII.
THE MUSHROOM IN CONNECTION WITH THE FAIRIES.
In the opinion of the folk of Great Britain and Ireland, possibly of the Continent as well, the mushroom was intimately connected with the dwellers in the realm of sprites and fairies, as can be shown in a moment, and by simple reference.
The lore of the peasantry of those countries is replete with the uncanniness of the “Fairy Circles,” which modern investigation has shown to be due to a species of fungus.
“Various theories were current among the peasantry to account for their existence. Some of them ascribed them to lightning; others to moles or other animals; and others again to the growth of a species of fungus. This is the more educated class. But the lower orders implicitly believed that they were the work of the fairies, and used by them for their nocturnal dancing. Woe to the poor mortal who ventured near at such moments. He was seized, forced to dance, soon lost all consciousness, and was truly in luck if he ever again succeeded in rejoining his mortal relatives.” A very exhaustive account of these Circles, and the superstitions in reference to them, is to be found in the third volume of Brand’s Popular Antiquities, London, 1854, article “Fairy Mythology,” p. 476 et seq.
“The most clear and satisfactory remarks on the origin of fairy rings are probably those of Dr. Wollaston, Sec. R. S., printed in the second part of the “Philosophical Transactions” for 1807.... The cause of their appearance he ascribes to the growth of certain species of agaric, which so entirely absorbs all nutriment from the soil beneath that the herbage is for a while destroyed.”—(Idem, p. 483.)
“In Northumberland, the common people call a certain fungous excrescence, sometimes found about the roots of old trees, Fairy Butter. After great rains, and in a certain degree of putrefaction, it is reduced to a consistency which, together with its color, makes it not unlike butter, and hence the name.”—(Idem, p. 493.)