At first it looked like Camp Creek, W.Va., would be a good place to spend the night.
The road proved a steep descent, dropping several hundred feet into the deeply forested valley bottom where a wild mountain stream twisted and turned as it gurgled amid the rocks. At the bottom the forest floor was blanketed with a deep bed of fallen leaves, a mingling of the scarlet and greens of maple dotted with the wondrous wildflowers of fall -- fleshy fungi, mushrooms. It was indeed an ideal place to take up serious toad stool hunting. The whole area looked like some sort of gnomes' lavish rest station.
In many societies, mushroom hunting is an enthusiastic family affair governed by elaborate rules, dress, speech and behavior. Because edible and choice fungi are difficult for most of us to identify (some species include up to 600 family members), many communities have a village witch, the person considered to have the most knowledge regarding mushroom culture, who holds an important station in the community. It is the sudden appearance and eruptions of mushrooms from the soil that led folks to believe that dark and terrible forces were at work, including lightning strikes, shooting stars, vapors, etc., all demanding of a witch's presence.
We didn't have a village witch available; however, the powers of decay at work were unmistakable. Underfoot, rising out of the rotting duff, were speckled, rust-colored Amanita muscaria, puffballs and a host of other species in red, green, yellows and pink. But most tended to be white or off-white in various stages, few of which I could recognize. My favorites, being the easiest recognizable and edible species, are the meadow, the morels, shaggy mains and, of course, the more common oyster mushrooms.
Any mushroom of which one is not sure must be avoided. Some are hallucinogenic, causing mental distortions. Others have bizarre effects, ranging from one containing liver-destroying enzymes to another, the drinker's bane, that destroys the ability to break down alcohol.
Harry Potter stories refer to "Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry" suggesting ergot poisoning. "Alice in Wonderland" tells us that whenever Alice ate from one side of a mushroom she would grow larger and, conversely, nibbling on the other side caused her to shrink. Folklore, worldwide, suggests "midnight mushrooms" give superior strength -- in other words, steroids for Superman.
Some cultures -- believing mushrooms to be the plant of immortality -- reserved them as food for royalty.
Almost all of us have seen fairy rings, sorcerers' rings or witches' rings, those circles where the woodland fairies come to dance, the mushrooms being stools where the sprites can catch their breath and rest, while at night elves use these same mushrooms as umbrellas, returning to the underworld with the oncoming light of day. During the daylight hours, toadstools also provide stalls for their toads, warty steeds for the sprites.
The belief that fungi were the works of devils and witches continued into the 19th century, along with the thinking that to destroy a fairy ring would bring down the wrath of the witches. On the other hand, they were thought to hold the combination to finding buried treasures.
Camp Creek bottoms proved to be too damp, dank and moldy a place to spend the night, so after admiring the fungal jungles, we emerged seeking higher, dryer ground. I prefer camping where I can see the stars passing silently overhead, saving moldy bottomlands for mushroom hunting.
