fairy circle

English

Fairy circles in Namibia

Noun

fairy circle (plural fairy circles)

1. Synonym of fairy ring
   • 1880, Wirt Sikes, British Goblins: Welsh Folk-lore, Fairy Mythology, Legends and Traditions, Sampson Low, Marston, Searle, & Rivington, page 73:

     Under that tree there is a fairy circle called The Dancing Place of the Goblin.

   • 1911, Jonathan Ceredig Davies, Folk-Lore of West and Mid-Wales, page 109:

     Then he explained how he entered the Fairy Circle, and how he was seized by them, but found their company so delightful that he thought he had been with them only for a few minutes.

2. A circular patch barren of vegetation, often encircled by a ring of stimulated grass growth, typically found in regions of arid grassland.

   Common in the arid grasslands of the Namib desert, particularly in Namibia, fairy circles were at first thought unique to that region; however, similar rings have been observed in a part of the Pilbara in Western Australia.

   • 2016, David Ward, The Biology of Deserts, 2nd edition, Oxford University Press, page 113:

     Danin and Orshan (1995) noted that the growth of the horizontal rhizome of Stipagrostis ciliata, a common species of fairy circles in both the Namib and Negev deserts, would naturally result in the formation of fairy circles over time.

See also

• heuweltjie
• mima mound