Ep. 229 : A Mushroom Folk Tale

My room, my house, my bags are all full of books, twigs, fruits, feathers, seeds, nuts, and bits of mushrooms this time of year. So too my stomach, my dreams, and my heart. My bedroom is littered with naturalist books and books of fairy tales and myths which I pull out and read before I turn out the light. I love the folk tales because if you read them in the right light, they share stories of relationships with the land from before christian colonization. For me, of european descent, this gives insight to how my ancestors may have gotten to know the places they lived and who they depended on to live good lives in relation with the lands they lived with.

I have shared stories of snakes, or the Winter solstice, or wildflowers throughout the years of doing this show, but never have I told a story about mushrooms. Until recently I only knew one or two, but recently I read a new one, a magical one, which I have really come to love. So on this week’s show I share the story of the “Berry-sisters and the Mushroom-brother” from the book Echo of the Green Mountains : Ukrainian Folk Tales as well as read a little about the internationally praised edible mushroom Boletus edulis.

This episode might be well suited for a cup of tea. But I’ll leave that up to you.

Image : Boletus edulis LC0371.jpg by Jörg Hempel⁠. 2014. Image. Wikimedia.org. (CC BY-ND 3.0)

To learn more :
Echo of the Green Mountains : Ukrainian Folk Tales by Serhiy Vladov and Mary Skrypnyk. Dnipro Publishers 1988.
National Audubon Society Mushrooms of North America. Knopf, 2023.