What are flying reindeer?

By Chelsie Vandaveer

December 23, 2005

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Spruce (Picea species) shrouded in snow and birch (Betula species) stark in a winter's landscape are but two of the images often depicted on holiday cards. Though these trees are very different, each shares a symbiotic relationship with a fungus in the Basidomycetes—Amanita muscaria (Linnaeus per Fries) Hooker—the fly agaric.

The fungal hyphae form connections with the tree roots increasing nutrient uptake. Without this mycorrhizal relationship, the trees grow poorly or not at all. In turn, the mushroom gets a share of the sugars produced by the trees. The fruiting body is usually bright red with white spots, but can be orange or yellow. This mushroom is eaten by many animals and was a tradition among various tribal groups in northern Europe and Russia.

Maple leaves frame a fly agaric mushroom
Lowell Georgia
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Fly agaric is notorious and certainly not socially acceptable in today's political climate. It contains psychoactive compounds, ibotenic acid and its derivative, muscimol, as well as toxins. The mushroom is an entheogen, a substance that "cause a person to be in god". Shamans, particularly those of Siberia and northern Europe, flew away to commune with the spirit world.

Nor was the link between birch and fly agaric unnoticed by the shamans. The center pole of a shaman's yurt (tent) was most often a birch trunk or the yurt was constructed around a living birch.

Prior to the early 20^th century, stylized red and white mushroom ornaments were common on Christmas trees or appeared in other holiday decorations. Fly agaric is inextricably tangled in our Christmas legends, especially those of reindeer (domesticated caribou, Rangifer tarandus), flying reindeer.

Flying reindeer motifs appear on items like drums belonging to the shaman class. Shamans ate the mushrooms*, so did reindeer. If a shaman became intoxicated and thought he was superhuman, then the bounding reindeer were certainly superdeer. And if the shaman was sure he flew across the sky, then surely, the intoxicated reindeer must fly too.

*Amanita muscaria is found around the Northern Hemisphere and it varies both in appearance and levels of toxins and hallucinogen. Ritual use of these mushrooms certainly had specific preparations which were handed down through the generations of shamans. Amanita mushrooms can and frequently do kill. Some of the species (which can easily be confused) are inescapably fatal.

(Compiled from: "Fly Agaric, the Plant God", Medical Botany, Plants affecting Man's Health, Walter H. Lewis and Memory P.F. Elvin-Lewis, John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 1977; "Amanita muscaria (L.:Fr.) Hook.", Norwegian Fungus of the Month, December 1999 Universitetet i Oslo, Norway; "Fungi, Fairy Rings, and Father Christmas, the mythology of fungi", Presidential Address, Dr. Sean Edwards, reported by Rita Cook, NWFG Newsletter, May 1998, published to the internet by North West Fungus Group; and Field Guide to North American Mushrooms, Gary H. Lincoff, National Audubon Society, Alfred A Knopf, New York, 1981)

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