Crouch beside a mushroom and suddenly you can see a house. Roof, pillar, room for a tiny doorstep. All it needs is a little woodland chap leaning out to tell you to wipe your boots. Add a drop of rain hanging from the edge and your brain starts planning the entire village.
You can see why we want to tell stories about these things. Finding out what fungi actually do gives us plenty to get excited about too. Let's have a look, with room for both curiosity and the neighbour who insists you've parked a leaf across his drive.
The mushroom is only part of the story
A mushroom is a reproductive structure produced by certain fungi. Their mycelium consists of fine threads growing through material such as soil or wood. Those threads aren't roots.
You noticed the little cap. Much of what makes that possible was out of sight. That's already a decent woodland revelation, even before anyone starts telling you the Wi-Fi password.
The dance floor with a terrible closing time
Some fungi expand outwards from a point, producing mushrooms in a circle. Kew describes this growth in its explanation of fairy rings. No tiny gardener with a compass required.
The name takes us into storytelling. In British Goblins, published in 1880, Wirt Sikes recounts a Welsh tale about Rhys and Llewellyn. Rhys hears music, leaves the path and disappears. Months pass. When he's finally found dancing inside an enchanted ring, he insists he's been there for less than five minutes.
We've all met someone whose idea of a quick night out needs investigating. This tale goes much darker: Llewellyn is suspected of murder, and Rhys dies shortly after coming home. These parties weren't always cosy. The rings in such accounts could also be circles in the grass, rather than a neat row of red mushrooms.
It's a particular story in a Welsh collection. It has its own character, just as the household spirits of European folklore have theirs. Turn every creature into the same cheerful mushroom-dweller and you lose half the fun.
A caterpillar who thinks he owns the place
Literature gives us another splendid example. In Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Alice finds a blue caterpillar sitting on a mushroom with its arms folded. It asks who she is, and the conversation becomes awkward almost immediately. Lovely welcome. Really puts you at ease.
The scale does so much of the work. Something small to us becomes a whole stage for someone smaller still. A cap can be a seat, a shelter or a platform from which an insect questions your entire existence. You could spend a happy afternoon drawing variations on that scene. There's no need to assign Carroll's fictional mushroom a real species.
What roots and fungi get up to
Mycorrhizae are associations between fungi and plant roots. The fungus helps the plant obtain water and nutrients. The plant supplies carbon derived from photosynthesis.
Think of neighbours exchanging resources each has access to. That's a handy comparison, though nobody underground is keeping a notebook of favours owed. It doesn't make every mushroom a socket on one enormous cable either.
In 2023, Karst and colleagues highlighted insufficient evidence for generalised stories of trees preferentially feeding their offspring through these networks.
Research continues. A 2025 study tracked how mycorrhizal fungi change their networks and internal flows as they grow. There are remarkable processes here that scientists can measure.
The “wood-wide web” is an appealing way into the subject. Understanding it means asking which organism was studied, under what conditions and what was measured. If someone tells us the trees have a WhatsApp group, we'll enjoy the joke and then ask for the proper explanation. Otherwise the whole palaver leaves us knowing less than when we started.
The red one stays out of the frying pan
Fly agaric, Amanita muscaria, is poisonous. The FDA documents poisoning and serious neurological effects from consuming the mushroom or products containing its constituents.
For an imaginary tea party, draw some cups and a furious argument about the last biscuit. Eating actual wild mushrooms requires reliable identification. Today's expedition is for looking, learning and getting pleasantly distracted by something growing beside a path.
Why we like mushrooms beside Magikitos
They suit tiny characters beautifully. A mushroom can be a wonky umbrella, a bench while someone's waiting for a friend, or an ambitious hat that won't fit through the front door. We love that sense of scale and the feeling that something might happen as soon as you look away.
The Magikitos have their own story: they're born when someone has a happy poo in the woods. The handmade cold-porcelain figures represent those characters. A sculpted mushroom gives them a setting and a little company. It doesn't need a scientific job title or an ancient Celtic pedigree.
You can finish your walk knowing a little more about fungi while still imagining our fussy neighbour. He's just put a notice beneath his mushroom: “Visitors welcome. Boots outside.” Fair enough, mate. Your roof, your rules.
Do mushrooms prove that woodland spirits exist?
No. The spirits here belong to folklore, literature and our own stories. You can enjoy those tales while learning about fungi, without treating one as evidence for the other.
Can a photo tell me whether a mushroom is safe to eat?
Don’t rely on a picture or an app. Get reliable expert identification. If you’re unsure, don’t eat it.
