18-09-2006, 05:04 PM
Something fun from :mrg:
There is a great red mushroom that illustrates children's books and is surrounded by ancient folklore. Oddly enough, it can also be found on 19th-century German Christmas cards.
These are but two of the clues that connect 'fly agaric' mushrooms to our holiday traditions of reindeer, red and even Santa.
'Amanita muscaria' shares a link to Christmases in regions where reindeer actually dwell. In the wild, it seems, reindeer can't resist eating the mushroom's red caps. They were not actually poisoned, but do get intoxicated by the fungi. This relationship was noticed a long time ago by the Sami of Lapland, one of the oldest indigenous cultures in the world. Their shamans and some reindeer shepherds began to consume mushrooms, seeking their hallucinogenic effects as well. But the toxicity of the mushrooms makes them dangerously poisonous to humans.
It is believed that hallucinations of "high"-flying reindeer caused by mushroom ingestion inspired the myth of an airborne reindeer-drawn sled. The shaman himself wore a coat of red and white, representative of the mushroom's red cap with its raised white spots. This ancient mushroom connection showed up--and continues to do so today--by mushroom-shaped glass Christmas tree ornaments from Germany.
Flying reindeer and Siberian shamans dressed in red and white are only a small glimpse at the enormous world of mushrooms. Nowhere else is it more perfectly seen than in a new edition of the decade old venerable title, Mushrooms and Other Fungi of North America, by Roger Phillips, (Firefly Books).
There is a great red mushroom that illustrates children's books and is surrounded by ancient folklore. Oddly enough, it can also be found on 19th-century German Christmas cards.
These are but two of the clues that connect 'fly agaric' mushrooms to our holiday traditions of reindeer, red and even Santa.
'Amanita muscaria' shares a link to Christmases in regions where reindeer actually dwell. In the wild, it seems, reindeer can't resist eating the mushroom's red caps. They were not actually poisoned, but do get intoxicated by the fungi. This relationship was noticed a long time ago by the Sami of Lapland, one of the oldest indigenous cultures in the world. Their shamans and some reindeer shepherds began to consume mushrooms, seeking their hallucinogenic effects as well. But the toxicity of the mushrooms makes them dangerously poisonous to humans.
It is believed that hallucinations of "high"-flying reindeer caused by mushroom ingestion inspired the myth of an airborne reindeer-drawn sled. The shaman himself wore a coat of red and white, representative of the mushroom's red cap with its raised white spots. This ancient mushroom connection showed up--and continues to do so today--by mushroom-shaped glass Christmas tree ornaments from Germany.
Flying reindeer and Siberian shamans dressed in red and white are only a small glimpse at the enormous world of mushrooms. Nowhere else is it more perfectly seen than in a new edition of the decade old venerable title, Mushrooms and Other Fungi of North America, by Roger Phillips, (Firefly Books).