Fairy Ring - Do Not Enter.
"Watch where you walk,
in the wilds of Ireland.
Care for your tread on the ground.
Step not inside the mushroom ring,
Or the sidhe will take you,
round and around."
-ScéalaI Beag
Ireland has long been a place set between the worlds and here to this very day we have some very firm and rightly observed lore about the folk of the Otherworld. From our early stories we are told the sidhe and the danger that may befall the unwary. One such danger is known as the fairy ring.
A fairy ring is an area of mushrooms that form either a pronounced arc or indeed a entire circle. It may also be a batch of dead grass, they most commonly arise in woodland or meadow areas.
Folk lore warns against stepping across the boundary of these rings as one could be ensnared by the sidhe folk. It is said that to step inside the ring is to come upon the sidhe when they are at revels and dancing. Some have reported hearing ghostly music emanating from the ring, entrancing and haunting in its beauty. Many are the tales of folk either taken down into their mounds, across to referee a hurling match, or even forced to join their dance until exhaustion leads to your death. Musicians are said to be of particular interest for should one of them stray across to the Otherside, they could find themselves performing at one long event until off the breaths of their life as shed.
There are some ways to escape this entrapment, either through awareness of the lore and the tricks with which to fool the fairy folk, or by being dragged bodily out of the ring by one who has enough caring for them to haul them back to this world. Often times the person, though returned to our world, has lost too much of themselves to the Otherworld.
They no longer enjoy or are sustained by the foods of our world, having supped upon the fare offered in fairy. They are lost in their own minds trying to forever recall their experience on the Otherside, or struck with a sadness that they will never again hear the delightful melodies of the sidhe folk.
Whether you are concerned of getting lost, or returning with only a half a life left to you, it might be best to follow one simple rule when confronted with a fairy ring. Do Not Enter.