Big Bang

A single spore falls on the rich, organic soil of an ancient country house lawn. It germinates and and grows its fungal web into the humid subterranean environment, spreading outward from that tiny point of origin. As year follows year, the centre senesces and dies; this decay also spreads outwards, concentric with the living ring of fungal tissue that continues its outward journey. The result is a halo of mycelium, ever spreading and expanding centripetally

The fungus forms a mutually beneficial relationship with the roots of the grass - exchanging plant nutrients from the soil for the carbohydrates manufactured in the solar factory that is grass leaves. Fungus-boosted grass grows faster and greener than the surrounding sward. On a damp autumn morning, we can look on it and see a mysterious ring. This one is just a few feet across, but in ancient Oxford quadrangles they can be tens of yards across

None of this precludes the fact that this is a midnight meeting point for a faerie conclave, a place where mischief is plotted, havoc is unleashed and the downfall of an arrogant and heartless chancellor is set in the stars