Fairies in my Front Yard

We have fairies.

I'm about 98% sure. Jalon is about 100% sure...that I'm crazy.

Either way, we have something pretty neat going on in our front yard.

Yesterday, he was mowing the lawn and I noticed something a little different about our yard. There was a defined circle in the lawn, highlighted by darker green grass and a ring of mushrooms.

I called it a fairy circle. That resulted in a look that I defined as "is she serious? I married someone absolutely nutzo." from Jalon.

Here's what we saw:

Inside that darker green circle are mushrooms.

Weird, right?

 

I love folklore and when it involves fairies, even better!

 

I did some research and this is what I came up with: Either we are doomed or we're lucky.

 

Interesting, right?

 

There wasn't a whole lot of research supporting my awesome beliefs, (some people are so boring...),lucky for me, Wikipedia was there with tons of support.

 

A big part of folklore is that this is where fairies dance. They can use the mushrooms as their tables or even parasols. Pretty harmless, right?

 

Other beliefs are that this is a dangerous place and should be avoided. Destroying a fairy ring is unlucky and apparently it will just grow back. You're not supposed to enter the circle, it's a trap and you will never be allowed to leave. They will force you to dance for years and maybe even marry one of their own.

 

Halloween is one of the more dangerous days to play around with the fairy circle. The only "safe" way to investigate a fairy ring is to run around 9 times. This allows you to actually hear the fairies dancing and frolicking underground. It has to be done under a full moon, and the runner must travel in the direction of the sun or the fairies may be able to trap you.

 

Get on it, Jalon. I want to see what happens.

 

And I really want to film you running around in a circle outside, in our front yard, at night...Please?

 

Unfortunately for me, Jalon is the more reasonable one and will probably not do anything that I suggest. During my research, done on Wikipedia (duh), I noticed there was a tiny section that was mostly science related. He will probably believe that nonsense before testing out my theory...

Here's the "science" part from Wikipedia.org:

 

The mycelium of a fungus growing in the ground absorbs nutrients by secretion of enzymes from the tips of the hyphae (threads making up the mycelium).^[2] This breaks down larger molecules in the soil into smaller molecules that are then absorbed through the walls of the hyphae near their growing tips.^[2] The mycelium will move outward from the center, and when the nutrients in the center are exhausted, the center dies, thereby forming a living ring, from which the fairy ring arises.^[2]

There are two theories regarding the process involved in creating fairy rings. One states that the fairy ring is begun by a spore from the sporocarpus. The underground presence of the fungus can also cause withering or varying colour or growth of the grass above. The second theory, which is presented in the investigations of Japanese scientists on the Tricholoma matsutake species, shows that fairy rings could be established by connecting neighbouring oval genets of these mushrooms. If they make an arc or a ring, they continuously grow about the centre of this object"

Basically, our lawn is being attacked by some sort of fungus that's pretty hard to remove.

Blah, blah, blah...seriously.

Which one is more fun?

Mine, of course. Fairies it is.