Folk omens why there are a lot of mushrooms. Folk signs about mushrooms: why are there a lot of mushrooms in the forest, a lot of white mushrooms, pick mushrooms in a leap year, mushrooms in a flower pot, on a grave, a witch's circle? Is it true that a lot of mushrooms are a sign of war

Autumn is known not only for the beauty of nature preparing for a long winter sleep, but also for its many generous gifts. And today we are not talking about the products that you can grow in your garden, but about what our forests are rich in. More specifically, about mushrooms. These amazing natural creatures are associated with many folk signs and superstitions, noticed by mushroom pickers and passed down from generation to generation. Today we will talk about the sign, to which a lot of mushrooms appear.

Interpretation of signs about mushrooms

According to folk tales, not in all cases a large number of mushrooms is a blessing. Our ancestors were especially wary of various natural anomalies. And when the favorite delicacy of many appeared in abundance, it was perceived as a definite warning that shocks were coming.

But even despite this, the mushroom season is always looked forward to. Mushroom pickers try to guess how fruitful it will be. Engaging in "silent hunting" is one of the favorite activities of many people. A large number of different beliefs and signs are associated with mushrooms.

So, the following facts will indicate a good harvest of mushrooms:

• at Christmas, “stars” sparkle brightly on the road;
• on the night before Christmas, as well as on Epiphany, many stars appeared in the sky;
• it rains on the Annunciation; if on this day there is a severe frost - do not be upset, the sign indicates an abundance of milk mushrooms;
• it rains all April;
• on glades, paths, on an old leaf left over from last year, there is abundant mold;

Also, the fact that there will be a lot of mushrooms, you will learn from a number of signs during the mushroom season itself.

The most important indicator is the presence of rains, because after them a lot of mushrooms grow (especially mushrooms).

Also, strong fogs will indicate that it is time to prepare baskets and go to the forest. The appearance of the first summer fog will be just a sign for you that the mushroom season is coming in the near future. And if fogs have become commonplace, there will be a lot of mushrooms.

According to the signs, you can also calculate the place in which the forest beauties are hiding from prying eyes:

• if the weather is hot and dry, mushrooms should be looked for under the trees, in the shade;
• in warm but damp weather, mushrooms scatter across the clearings.

Our ancestors were so inventive that they even learned to set a specific time when certain varieties of mushrooms appear:

• so, when the pine tree begins to bloom, it means that butterflies have appeared;
• rye has begun to sprout - it's time to take a basket and go look for boletus;
• when the rye ripened, the second crop of boletus boletus ripened along with it;
• fluff appears on the aspen - you can prepare for the appearance of boletus;
• when oats ripen, feel free to go looking for mushrooms.

Different types of mushrooms interact with each other in different ways. Based on this indicator, you can also make a certain forecast:

• if there are waves, milk mushrooms will soon appear;
• spotted fly agarics with bright red hats - be careful, white, “royal” mushrooms are hiding somewhere not far from them;
• if you find one oiler, you should look for others next to it.

Many of the experienced mushroom pickers are of the opinion that the “mushroom index” is able to predict future events. So our distant great-great-grandmothers were sure that a lot of mushrooms appeared before the war. And there was plenty of evidence for that. For example, the old-timers recalled that the beginning of the summer of 1941 was very mushroomy. On the edges of many regions of Central Russia, chanterelles and butterflies suddenly began to appear. At first, people rejoiced, collected gifts from nature, and very soon, a few days later, the Great Patriotic War began.

Other signs and superstitions about mushrooms

Separately, I would like to dwell on white mushrooms. Their large number has always been associated in parallel with a good harvest of bread. The people even had a special saying for this occasion: "When it's mushroom, then it's bread."

In the event that mushrooms began to appear on the walls of a house, this promised a very rich year for the owner of the dwelling. Those who give their preference to "quiet hunting" for mushrooms are firmly convinced that porcini mushrooms usually hide near fly agarics and love their neighbors very much. Therefore, if you suddenly stumble upon a fly agaric in the forest, take a close look at your surroundings: it is likely that mushrooms are hiding somewhere nearby.

Other mushroom pickers believe that by the presence of fern thickets it is easy to detect the area where aspen mushrooms grow, although others believe that only fly agarics grow next to them. And this, if we remember the previous sign, will again lead us to porcini mushrooms.

If you notice a large number of porcini mushrooms in the forest, immediately grab the baskets and run to harvest, because next year may not be so successful. Every year there is a rebirth of the mycelium, plus porcini mushrooms are a very popular product.

The appearance of porcini mushrooms in the forest is also indicated by the flowering of jasmine, and this can also be determined by the heavily swarming midges. You can go on a mushroom picking trip after good heavy rains have passed, and it is important that August is also not stingy with rainfall. And also a very good time for a trip into the forest is a period when a lot of mold appears on the paths.

And according to skeptics, there are never too many mushrooms in principle. Therefore, stop thinking about the interpretation of this or that sign - rather run into the forest and return from there with a basket full of porcini mushrooms, oil, honey agaric, chanterelles and other yummy!

There is a folk saying: mushroom summer - to war. And 2013 turned out to be rich in mushrooms ...

But this sign, like many others, "does not guarantee" anything. So, for example, it was in 2006. Then the mushroom pickers also rejoiced, and the connoisseurs of signs frowned. A whole article devoted to the topic of mushrooms and war was prepared in 2006 by the Novoe Delo newspaper from Nizhny Novgorod. We publish it.

There was one interesting moment in the series "Death of the Empire", which was recently shown on Channel One. The heroes discussed that there were too many mushrooms this summer. "To be war," summed up one of them. The story was set in 1914...

Skeptics will say that all this is fiction. However, in fact, evidence from contemporaries has survived that the summer of 1914 was indeed one of the most mushroomy. Just like the summer of 1941. "There was still a forest nearby .... We went to this forest for mushrooms. There were apparently invisible mushrooms, especially porcini mushrooms. People then said that porcini mushrooms were for the war and, however, there were a lot of them," recalls the veteran of the Great Patriotic War Nadezhda Petrovna. Mentions of the mushroom summer of 41 are also found in other memoirs of war participants.

Yes, and in our time, too, there are confirmations of this sign.

“I remember that in the summer of 1993 I picked up a whole mountain of mushrooms, I was still surprised then,” one experienced mushroom picker told us. - And in October 1993, Yeltsin's tanks fired at the parliament. So I believed in this sign.

They say that there were many mushrooms in our forests in 1996, when the second Chechen campaign began. Mushroom was the summer of 1997, with the Balkan crisis that began then. And here again the mushroom summer ....

Maybe it's not by chance that the mushroom became a symbol of war? After all, even a deadly cloud from a nuclear explosion has the shape of a mushroom ... And the mushrooms themselves still remain a mystery to both science and people.

“Mushrooms are like aliens,” says the artist Leonid Kolosov, who dedicated many of his works to these mysterious creatures of nature. - When I wrote them, I had the feeling that they control me, and not I control the process. Mushrooms in general are such an amazing thing - they are not plants, not animals, they do not look like anything at all ...

Even modern science cannot accurately answer the question of what mushrooms are. There are at least three versions of their origin: they could have appeared from protozoa, from algae and from bacteria. For a long time, scientists struggled over how to classify them. On the one hand, mushrooms are similar to plants. But they have no roots, no leaves, no flowers, not even seeds. And they cannot carry out photosynthesis: that is, absorb carbon dioxide and produce oxygen. But this is one of the main functions of plants.

Science has proven that some mushrooms can travel short distances! And some mushroom species are divided into "boys and girls", which makes them more like animals. In addition, fungi have their own primitive metabolism and they produce proteins, including the basic amino acids that are characteristic of the animal world. But mushrooms do not see, do not make sounds and do not bite. Therefore, they cannot be classified as animals.

There were even fantastic versions. In a 16th-century German herbalist, mushrooms were called "children of the gods." And the French botanist of the 18th century, Veyan, assured that mushrooms were specially invented by the devil in order to disrupt the harmony of nature and drive plant researchers to despair.

By the way, mushrooms have always been suspected of discrediting ties with evil spirits. This was especially evident in the harsh centuries of the Middle Ages. As you know, some mushrooms grow in a regular circle. Such circles were called "witch rings". Particularly suspicious was the fact that the grass within these circles was drying up. It was believed that witches held a sabbath in this place. And in Holland they seriously believed that an enchanted treasure was stored in such a ring.

Ecologists also have a wary attitude towards mushrooms. It is believed that mushrooms absorb various harmful substances and chemicals. Therefore, you can also get poisoned by an edible mushroom, for example, if it grew somewhere near the road.

In general, the reputation of mushrooms is not the most trustworthy. So why, in addition to everything they said, should they not also be the heralds of war? Look, the Middle East is now restless, and the situation in the Caucasus is complicated. Is there anything else that could happen?

And this summer something strange is going on with mushrooms. The first crops of chanterelles and honey mushrooms appeared in June, that is, abnormally early. However, biologists took this calmly. As they explained to us, the mycelium had accumulated juices since last autumn - then there was no such harvest. Therefore, this year the mushrooms went early. This has already happened in 2003 and 2004. With the current harvest, there is nothing special either: the summer was not dry, there was enough moisture, so the mushrooms climbed.

As for the connection between mushrooms and war, historians have no official data on this. In addition, people call a large harvest of wheat and a huge number of berries in the forests as harbingers of misfortune.

But if signs exist, it means that there is something in them. Although, of course, it would be better if such signs did not come true.

In the Moscow region, you can collect up to 10 kilos per day, in the Vladimir region - 100

Scientists have not decided whether these are plants or animals. But people's love for mushrooms did not decrease from this. This year they pay people a hundredfold for their attention - at the turn of the coming autumn, the Central Russian zone was simply covered with a mushroom invasion.

Some of the connoisseurs will accept the firm belief that the "mushroom index" is able to predict future events. "Such an abundance of mushrooms - to war!" - used to say, our great-grandfathers, great-grandmothers. And there is evidence for that. For example, old-timers recalled that at the beginning of the summer of 1941, in many regions of Central Russia, seemingly not at all "on schedule", chanterelles suddenly began to grow rapidly along the forest edges. The people rejoiced, they collected these gratuitous gifts of nature in buckets, and a few days later the black military suffering broke out.

There is, it turns out, another specific “mushroom sign”. At least, this is what one of the amateur local historians, a resident of the Mozhaisk district, Pyotr Kostromin, with whom the author of these lines had a chance to talk to at one time, claimed. Pyotr Erofeevich, who traveled many paths along the western suburbs of Moscow, noticed a curious pattern: mushrooms very willingly grow where the battles of the Great Patriotic War once took place - in places of trenches and dugouts swollen with earth ... According to Kostromin, he repeatedly succeeded even thanks to this sign find such "military facilities" and, together with the invited soldiers of the search teams, carry out successful excavations there in order to discover the remains of dead Soviet soldiers. However, the local historian emphasized that in recent years his sign has actually “vanished”. Perhaps too much time has passed since the battles with the Nazis, and the mushrooms have ceased to "feel" the echoes of those tragic events.

However, biologists, of course, laugh at these signs. After all, it is known that a good harvest of mushrooms happens every three to four years and depends, firstly, on last year's autumn, it should be warm and rainy, and secondly, on August, it should also indulge in rains.

You can make sure that the mushroom "high season" is in full swing by visiting the capital's markets. On the shelves there is an abundance of mushrooms. Moreover, almost all representatives of the classic mushroom "top ten" are available - porcini, boletus, saffron mushrooms, boletus, boletus, chanterelles ...

Such a shaft of goods has little effect on prices. Mushroom mushrooms, depending on the size, go for 800-1200 rubles, boletus - for 600-800, boletus and chanterelles for 250-300 ... The geography of market gifts of nature is quite motley: mushrooms, judging by the statements of sellers, were brought from Vladimir, Tver, Yaroslavl even the Tambov regions. Mushroom pickers, for example, in the Vladimir region, called a record figure - one hundred kilograms of mushrooms in a few hours. The most amazing thing is that sometimes you don’t even have to go into the forest for them - they already grow in the fields that begin immediately behind the village houses.

Of course, compared with the periphery, the metropolitan region is not distinguished by such powerful "deposits" of mushrooms, however, in the Moscow region, if desired, you can harvest a good harvest of the same aspen mushrooms or even white ones. Here, mushroom pickers give numbers - 7-10 kilograms for a full "mushroom" day.

Of course, the majority of residents of the capital region, who seriously trade in the “third hunt” (this is what the classic of Russian literature Sergei Aksakov called the process of searching and picking mushrooms), do not name the places of their cherished forest lands, but we managed to find out where in the Moscow region mushroom pickers with a large a rich harvest awaits.

You should immediately make a reservation: it’s better not to try to pick mushrooms closer than two dozen kilometers from the Moscow Ring Road. Not to mention the scarcity of local forests, crowded by summer cottages and cottage settlements, any "one-legged man in a hat" who dares to grow up here absorbs a lot of harmful substances - waste products of the metropolis.

The best prospects for a good catch are those who travel north and east of the capital.

According to the Savelovsky direction, forests north of Dmitrov are considered mushrooms - along the Dubna River, the vicinity of Verbilki, forest thickets along the Rogachevskoe highway; northeast of Iksha. In the Yaroslavl direction, one of the most "mushroom" territories is to the north of Sofrin, Khotkovo; productive places can also be found in the vicinity of the village. Fryanovo. The Leningrad direction promises success to those mushroom pickers who climb into the forests west of Klin - beyond the town of Vysokovsk, along the northwestern arc of the Great Moscow Automobile Ring.

The eastern regions of the region are also among the most mushroom. Here, among the vast coniferous forests, the favorite places of whites, boletus, butter. Here are just some of the possible "reference points" on the "mushroom picker's map": Shevlyagino, Zapolitsy, pos. Misheronsky (Kurovsky direction); settlement them. Tsyurupy, Dmitrovtsy (Kazan direction); Voinovo, Semenovo, Kovrigino (Gorky direction).

The southern borders of the Moscow land (these are the Paveletskoye and Kursk directions) are not so rich in forests, but mushroom pickers find the “right” places there too: for example, the vicinity of the village of Kishkino, Panino, Talezh, Novinki ...

It remains to mention the western regions. In the Kyiv direction, you can take note of Kamenskoye and Belousovo as landmarks. According to Belarusian - Semenkovo, Oblyanishchevo, pos. Kolyubakino, Dyadenkovo. In the Riga direction, many choose Lesodolgorukovo, Pokrovskoye, Novlyanskoye, Chismena as starting places to go in search of mushrooms ...

Fans of mushroom dishes have another way to stock up on the right product: use the techniques of growing mushrooms in artificial conditions.

Man has been mastering such agricultural production for more than one century. The most convenient for breeding "in the garden" were champignons, oyster mushrooms. However, craftsman enthusiasts manage to cultivate even the most popular species - boletus, white. These representatives of the "elite" belong to the so-called mycorrhiza-forming group of fungi, which are characterized by the fact that their mycelium must grow together with the roots of certain types of trees - birch, pine, spruce ... So for the successful cultivation of such "one-legged" it is necessary that your the plot was closely adjacent to the forest, and even better - so that trees grew on it. Several methods have been worked out for conducting a mushroom "sowing" campaign. You can, for example, find a place in the forest chosen by porcini mushrooms, dig out fragments of an overgrown mycelium there, divide them into pieces the size of a chicken egg and plant them in your area under the trees, covering them with a thin layer of forest soil on top. It can also be used as a starting material for growing the caps of overripe mushrooms. They are cut into small pieces, mixed with soil and watered. The first harvest can be expected in a year.

Artificial cultivation of "elite" mushrooms is troublesome. Therefore, it is much easier to stock up on forest gifts in the traditional old-fashioned way: in the morning, a basket in your hands - and into the forest. Judging by the weather forecasts, the warm, fine season, such a lovely mushroom "growth", will last in our area for at least another week, so that we all still have enough time to go on the "third hunt".

Many signs came from a person's careful observation of the world around him. Events occurring in nature aroused increased interest among people in antiquity. After all, natural phenomena were beyond the control of man, and he, on the contrary, largely depended on the weather, the world of plants and animals.

In this thread:

The forest gave man food, fuel, medicines, and other elements important for survival. Therefore, everything related to forest wealth aroused genuine interest. Many porcini mushrooms were born, forest raspberries pleased with a plentiful harvest - all this was significant for a person in the past. Many superstitions have survived to this day.

Mushroom year: meaning

Ancient signs in the mushroom year promise many deaths. The proverb has been living for more than one century: "Many mushrooms - many coffins." In most cases, this abundance of coffins is associated only with human losses in the war. The foundations of this point of view were clearly confirmed in the Great Patriotic War. On the eve of the catastrophe, there were many white mushrooms. They were found in abundance in the summer of the 40th and even in the spring of the 41st.

Such a large harvest alerted only the old-timers, who saw signs of imminent trouble. Ignoring folk wisdom, they rejoiced at the opportunity to diversify their table with delicious dishes. As a result, almost every family in the country suffered, people died both at the front, and in captivity, and in the rear. The dimensions of the tragedy are such that there is no need to talk about a large number of coffins. Most were buried without them at all, and many were not even buried in their own grave. After all, mass graves became the norm in those terrible years.

But in the post-war years, it was noted that a lot of porcini mushrooms grow in the places of trenches dug during the war. It has become a hallmark for search engines to find a place where porcini mushrooms grow in abundance and excavate there. In most cases, it was there that it was possible to find the remains of dead soldiers.

But such folk signs of experienced mushroom pickers cause bewilderment among botanists. Scientists believe that a good mushroom harvest is observed every 3-4 years. And it is possible if the day before was a warm, wet autumn. If the weather is bad, frosts come early, do not expect a mushroom summer next year.

There are other signs about mushrooms. The abundance of mushrooms - mushrooms is considered a harbinger of a good grain harvest. Since in the past a good harvest of bread became a guarantee of prosperity in the house, a plentiful mushroom harvest was perceived as a harbinger of wealth. The sign of wealth considers a lot of mushrooms on the wall of a residential building to be a 100 percent sign of financial enrichment that will come in the near future. Moreover, enrichment will come unexpectedly, just as mushrooms have grown unexpectedly in a place not unusual for this.

Mushroom harvest in leap year

The leap year is believed to bring many unpleasant surprises. Healers do not advise taking anything from the earth this year. Popular superstitions endow this time with the ability to send evil through the earth. Therefore, in the forest, everything that is closer to the ground is saturated with negativity, which can pass to a person.

As a result, you can attract troubles, misfortunes to your family, deprive loved ones of health. These beliefs have a scientific explanation. Once every 4 years, the mycelium is reborn, and everything that it generates has many harmful substances, even poisonous ones. So mushrooms in a leap year can really be harmful to health.

Signs for the search for mushrooms

To find very valuable mushrooms in the forest, folk beliefs advise looking for fly agarics and ferns. It is noted that where there are fly agaric mushrooms can be collected. This sign has a scientific justification. The growth conditions of these 2 species are similar. It’s just that the fly agaric is visible from afar, and the boletus is hiding. But mushrooms have different principles of neighborhood with russula.

Popular beliefs say that russula, which appeared before whites, portend a bad harvest. A very dense fern also shows where mushrooms can be collected. It is also customary for mushroom pickers to focus on swarming midges. When she becomes intrusive, climbs to a person, the optimal time has come to collect mushrooms.

If jasmine grows in the forest, its flowering will be a signal to mushroom pickers that it is already possible to pick porcini mushrooms.

Another important sign for mushroom pickers about porcini mushrooms is the mold that has appeared on the path. This happens only after the rains, which were very much this year. But a hot, dry summer will make the harvest scarce. It is believed that it is possible to count on fruitful quiet hunting only during the period of summer fogs. Mushroom season ends when leaf fall begins. Falling leaves in the forest say that it is necessary to collect the last mushrooms this year, there will be no more of them. If mushroom pickers are pleased with the finds at the end of autumn, then winter will come late. There are special folk tips that will help mushroom pickers bring very rich prey:

• do not walk through the forest without shoes;
• put several different blades of grass in your pocket;
• hide small branches of 3 different trees in a scarf or hat.

Mushroom hunting rules

Experienced mushroom pickers advise: "I found a white one - make a stop." This rule for collecting mushrooms can be extended to other representatives of this kingdom. If one fungus is found, you need to stop and look very carefully around, examine everything, study it. Surely you can find the second, third one nearby ... The structural features of the root system - mycelium - lead to the fact that mushrooms grow in large families. Moreover, young specimens grow away from those that appeared first.

As a result, a circle is formed, which people call witches. It expands from year to year. By its size, you can judge how ancient this mycelium is. The witch circle has given rise to many superstitions. The Slavs thought that such rings appear where witches dance. In Europe, the appearance of mushroom circles was explained by the peculiarities of the life of dancing gnomes. There is a belief that they danced not just in a circle, but around a buried treasure. Another name for the witch's circle is the ring of elves, the circle of fairies, the witch's ring.

In Germany, such a natural feature was correlated with the place of the witches' sabbath. Dried grass in these circles was considered the result of the dances of mystical creatures, who with their feet not only trampled the green cover, but also burned it out. Scientists explain the drying of grass by the action of mycelium, which absorbs all moisture and nutrients, as a result of which nothing remains for the grass, and it dies.

Places of growth

Everyone knows that a mushroom harvest must be sought in the forest. Growing champignons and some other species on an industrial scale is also no surprise. But sometimes you can find them in a flower pot. This happens when there were fragments of mycelium in the purchased soil, and the owners took care of the flower too hard and watered it a lot. Such an event does not portend anything terrible, but it will be difficult to get rid of the unwanted neighborhood. If the fungus has grown, then there will be others. You can try to change the land, use phytosporin.

There are signs about mushrooms that grew on the grave. This happens quite often. Many have seen that graves in cemeteries can be literally completely covered with champignons, russula, cowsheds. But you can’t take them there, although the abundance of mushrooms or pigs can be tempting. The consequences of such a collection will be the saddest. The peace of the dead must not be disturbed. Together with the collected mushrooms, you can bring the dead home. Then the atmosphere of death will settle in the house. Nothing can be taken out of the cemetery.

Even the smallest piece of land from the cemetery that got into the house means a grave brought to the dwelling. Everything related to the cemetery belongs to the dead, who will never give anything away just like that. This superstition has a logical explanation. Mushrooms accumulate all the harmful substances that are in the place where they grow. And the ground around the graves contains a lot of cadaveric poison.

Finding mushrooms in a dream often portends well-being. Find white - to prosperity. Morels - to good health. With red hats - good luck. Only with black hats - unfortunately.

Conclusion

All superstitions existing among the people arose as a result of long-term observations of the world and the identification of the interdependence of everything that happens.

Therefore, no matter how indifferent a person is to superstitions, he is unlikely to agree to eat mushrooms collected on a grave. But no one will refuse to use the signs that will help you find mushrooms in the forest more often.