A
ring of
mushrooms that seems to
suddenly appear overnight. Fairy rings are considered
magical by many, a sign that the
fairys danced, or held a tea party, in the
ring the previous night. It was believed if you sat at night where a fairy ring happened often, or sometimes where one had appeared the day before, you could see the fairys dance and celebrate. But to step into the ring and disturb their
sacred space was to break the
spell and you would fall into an
enchanted sleep until the dawn. Once the day has
broken it is "safe" to go into a fairy ring, but it is still considered wrong, damaging something sacred somehow.
When I was very young and it was a beautiful spring or summer evening, i would often take a magnolia leaf, broad and flat, and twigs, forming them into a table. Then i would take acorns, pull the caps off, fill them from the hose, or when it so rarely was, dew, and use them as cups for "tea". Sometimes i would take azela petals and tear them up into tiny pieces, thinking if they looked so pretty the fairys would like to eat them because they would be sweet and beautiful. When i did this, i left smaller twigs as silverware. It just felt right, because i *knew* there was magic in my backyard, i knew they were there with all my six-year old soul.
The cups were usually dry by morning, the petals sometimes scattered, sometimes gone, sometimes there. I could never tell if it was the dear little creatures, the cat, or the wind who disturbed the wee table.
But once... just once... i came out in the morning and found a fairy ring around my table. It was the most magical sacred thing i'd ever seen... and may be to this day.
Just once, for all their teas, they left in return a fairy ring for me.