Something about mushrooms? - r/ExplainTheJoke

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u/horshack_test 1d ago edited 1d ago

Fairy circle. People often feared fairies would snatch their children away. Iron repels fairies.

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u/jonpaco 1d ago

Also the fairy leave a changeling in place of the child they took. The changeling wound behave off and weird, historians think the myth is a way to explain autism in a mid evil culture.

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u/Embarrassed_Home_175 1d ago

Please tell me you meant medieval.

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u/Old_Huckleberry1026 1d ago

Nah. Just evil that’s mid…

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u/UnoriginalNameofUser 1d ago

I love my evil perfectly average, thank you

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u/Old_Huckleberry1026 1d ago

It’s definitely above average, In fact I’d say it’s actually pretty huge

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u/Legitimate-Box-390 1d ago

Your evil is huge! Its massive!

You know what else is massive?

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u/Old_Huckleberry1026 1d ago

My evil ego now for sure

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u/Baile_An_Ti_Mhor_Hon 1d ago

Certainly not thoroughly evil.

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u/anythingMuchShorter 1d ago

Except during times like the crusades or the inquisition, when they went full send evil.

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u/Yeshua_shel_Natzrat 1d ago

To be fair, medieval authorities were pretty mid evil.

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u/Super_Rando_Man 1d ago

Grand enquisitor torquemada , now that misspelled guy was top teir evil

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u/PreciousTimeGloryDay 1d ago

Let’s face it! You can’t Torquemada anything! (With credit to Mel Brooks)

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u/Sea_Turnip6282 1d ago

😂😂

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u/jonpaco 1d ago

I’m dyslexic and picked the first option, so yeah I did.

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u/nufone69 1d ago

This comment made me cry for the quality of the education system

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u/jonpaco 1d ago

The joys of dyslexia, I can have a large vocabulary but I can’t spell as good as I would like.

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u/RavingCatfish 1d ago

Ah. Fairies scrambled my brains then. I always figured it was something like that.

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u/jonpaco 1d ago

Fairy: hay kid eat this mushroom and you can see “everything at once “.

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u/Light_Bright_17 1d ago

Suddenly steel bearing super effective against fairy makes sense

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u/Shradersofthelostark 1d ago

I learned something today

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u/DanielCampos411 1d ago

Is that why steel is super effective against Fairy in Pokemon?? Now I just need to know why fairy is immune to dragon. Other than balance wise stuff.

0

u/EuphoriantCrottle 1d ago

Wow. That’s a lot of things you have to know to get the joke.

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u/Festivefire 1d ago

It is fairly common mythological knowledge, basically only one tier down from "Werewolves transform at the full moon" level stuff.

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u/EuphoriantCrottle 21h ago

That iron repels fairies? That was completely new to me. I kinda think you have to come from a culture with a lot of fairy lore to know that.

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u/IcarusSunburn 19h ago

Nothing recent in pop culture has really highlighted it, but this was a plot point in a lot of movies and shows in the 80s and 90s. Even cartoons like Gargoyles, the Real Ghostbusters, and Swat Kats covered this little tidbit. Probably just a matter of the wheel of popular attention being on the far side of that subject right now.

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u/Fluffy_Ace 2h ago

I didn't about the iron repels fairies thing before seeing this, but I DID know about the mushroom circle = fairies thing.

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u/Al_DeGaulle 1d ago

There are three parts to this.

1) In folklore that sort of ring of mushrooms is known as a fairy circle. They spring up in areas that fairies have been playing or holding court. There is a tradition that if you enter a fairy circle you may be enslaved, unable to leave for years, or forced to dance until the point of exhaustion/death.

2) Cold iron is able to repel, bind, or harm various types of fairy (depending on where you get your folklore.)

3) Fiaires are also infamous for abducting very young children and leaving non-responsive simulacra in their place (which is as good an explanation of autism as modern science has provided, so hooray for old folk tales?)

Anyhow, the joke is that when the liability obsessed removed all that dangerous metal playground equipment they opened up a way for the wee folk to start wholesale child abducting.

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u/4Sk1nMunch3r 1d ago

so this comment is how i find out why fairy type is weak to steel type in pokemon

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u/Expensive-Layer7183 1d ago

So what I took from that is plastic causes autism. Thank you I will bring this info back to my million moms group to justify the measles death of my 8 month old.

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u/samsnom 1d ago

That makes sense, I was thinking its turning kids into “fairies”.

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u/ScatterCushion0 1d ago

That's one version of what a Changling was - a fairy imposter child.

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u/spicy_feather 1d ago

Let them play in it you cowards. I'm totally not working for the fae or anything but it's fine.

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u/Firemorfox 1d ago

I'm not either, I just had a good time last I did it and wholeheartedly support diving head first into fairy circles.

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u/spicy_feather 1d ago

Yup just a couple non fairy advocates tryna get people to jump into the circle. Iron is lame anyway

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u/Next-Yogurt5675 1d ago

Elves are wonderful. They provoke wonder. Elves are marvellous. They cause marvels. Elves are fantastic. They create fantasies. Elves are glamorous. They project glamour. Elves are enchanting. They weave enchantment. Elves are terrific. They beget terror. The thing about words is that meanings can twist just like a snake, and if you want to find snakes look for them behind words that have changed their meaning. No one ever said elves are nice. Elves are bad.

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u/ocero242 1d ago

Elves took my dad

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u/Hurryingthenwaiting 7h ago

Unexpected Pratchett.

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u/Amerisu 1d ago

No one ever said elves are nice.

I'm sorry, but this is just false. Lots of folks have said elves are nice. Tolkien, the source of modern elves, literally called them in The Hobbit, "A Good People." You can say Tolkien perverted it or twisted it or basically did with elves what Twilight did with vampires, but saying that "no one" ever said elves are nice is simply absurd.

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u/Robossassin 1d ago

This is in Discworld lore, rather than Tolkienian.

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u/Next-Yogurt5675 1d ago

This is based on the old folklore around elves and the fae folk, which is what the meme is talking about. That's actually a quote from one of the greatest authors of all time in his book that's all about elves breaking through into discworld because everyone had forgotten the old ways, whiched seemed to fit perfectly. Tolkien was amazing, but it's a damn shame that his fantasy elves are reused in every fantasy book or game and no-one uses the old folklore anymore

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u/Amerisu 1d ago

Ah, sorry, wasn't familiar with the quote.

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u/Next-Yogurt5675 1d ago

It's a pretty obscure reference. When it comes to sir terry pratchett you don't know him at all or you're a megafan. Or your british and you heard about him when he got knighted and hid a meteorite sword i guess lol. GNU STP

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u/FoolishChatterbox 1d ago

Good folk gonna good folk 🤷‍♀️

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u/PokeRay68 1d ago

The mushrooms form a Faerie ring.
Faeries kidnap children.
Iron kills Faeries.

Iron swingset protects children from acquisitive Faeries.
Plastic swingset is Faerie friendly.

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u/egcom 1d ago

Came to say this!

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u/Remarkable-Career299 1d ago

The Fae cannot touch Iron.

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u/december14th2015 1d ago

Iron wards off the folk, and the fairies grow in rings. 💁🏻‍♀️☘️🌟

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u/Curious-Message-6946 1d ago

It’s a fairy ring! A fairy was dancing there and was playing in the playground!

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u/stealth_t 1d ago

You dance and dance and dance till you drop!

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u/Trick_Expression8276 1d ago

Mushrooms usually grow where there is alot of nitrogen and carbondioxide. Nitrogen and carbondioxide in the soil is usually caused by decaying biomatter. A body was buried there 🧟‍♂️🧟‍♂️

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u/PuddleCrank 1d ago

More likely a tree body but sure. Old woodchips or a stump would do the trick.

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u/JKT-477 1d ago

That’s a type of fairy circle, a natural phenomenon once thought to be caused by Fae like elves or fairies. The only defense against Fae is iron.

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u/lansely 1d ago

the Fae cannot handle iron.

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u/nana__4 1d ago

it is fairy trap

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u/chemelak 1d ago

Did anyone else think of Spiderwick for a moment?

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u/JCB1124 22h ago

[FIGHT THE FAIRIES]

(https://youtu.be/EcMZbhdS5Bo?si=egoUSgb3FZMKos3H)

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u/Crash_English 1d ago

Still doesn't explain the circles in Skyrim...

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u/orangutanDOTorg 1d ago

They usually still have metal bolts and stuff, at least the one I assembled

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u/SevereAlternative616 1d ago

The ring of mushrooms is a fairy circle. They’re saying it’s turning us into fairies.

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u/randbot5000 1d ago

I think this is a reach. Fairy rings, and the fae, are dangerous in mythology. Cold iron is a protection against them, and the joke is that we didn't realize the real reason for the metal playground equipment was to protect our children from the fae.

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u/SevereAlternative616 1d ago

I like mine better

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u/FireMaster2311 1d ago

I'm guessing you just want an excuse to think you are a fairy then... which... go for it.

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u/KapMe95 1d ago

I initially misread your username as "FairyMaster"... which... would have totally made your permission to be a fairy awesome

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u/Goofcheese0623 1d ago

It's supposed to ward off karma farming. Not working apparently.