Have you ever seen a little ring of mushrooms or toadstools on a green or in the woods? Our ancestors applied mystical and superstition meanings to these strange sights, believing them to be the work of fairies. Even in the 1980s I was told never to enter into a fairy ring if I saw one, in fear of upsetting the tiny creatures who lived there. 

Mary Neilson was an orphan who lived with her grandmother near the Scottish town of Falkirk. Her story dates to at least 1847, when neighbours assured a curious visitor that the legend of her tale was true. What happened to Mary later became used as a warning to other children to stay away from fairy rings. 

Mary had left the home of her grandmother to pick flowers in the nearby moor, close to a farm called Bentend. She was just seven years old, and on stopping to pick some wildflowers, saw a fairy. The legend goes that the fairy told Mary to come with her. 

Photo by R. David Cummins on Unsplash

Mary went with the fairy, who took her to a beautiful waterside, a lake with two swans, whose wings 'glittered in the light'. One approached the fairy while the other went to Mary. They then entered a wood, the light reflecting off the leaves of the trees, reminding the young girl of flashes of silver. Eventually, the fairy told Mary that she would stay with them and be their queen. Mary refused, saying she needed to get back to her grandmother. The fairy said 'refuse not', but Mary wouldn't budge. The fairy took her back to the fairy ring, but is said to have then blinded the young girl 'in revenge'. 

A shepherd found Mary crying in the fairy ring, and asked her what was the matter. Saying she couldn't see, he asked where she had come from. Mary told him about her grandmother's house, and he took her there. On the way the girl told him of the story of the swans, the woods and the fairy. Her story was shared in the local community, who asserted that it must have been the fairies that caused blindness because 'her looks were not changed. Her eye was as full of beauty as ever'.

It was said too, that on every seventh anniversary of the fairy appearing (seven being her age at the time of the occurrence) two swans came to low water near Bentend 'and when they fly away they seemed to carry the moonlight on their wings'. 

Although the writer who recorded Mary's legend, in the Scottish Journal of Topography, Antiquities, Traditions, stated that it was within living memory in 1847, there is no date given in any of the accounts of the actual event. However it is possible to place Mary's experience to at least 1833. The regular occurrence of the swans at the anniversary states that it happened on each anniversary and so must have been more than 14 years to establish a pattern. Of course, the legend might even be older. Fairy rings have held a superstitious importance for a long time, and, like mermaids, were used to convince children from wandering deep into woods, or towards water, alone. 

While I love to believe that there are little fairy-like creatures living in our woods, it is of course possible that Mary invented the story to try to get herself out of trouble. Some species of woodland fungus can cause blindness (which I found after a quick Google search). Bacteria in woodland soil can also have this effect, although I couldn't find out how quickly it takes effect. Is it possible too, that some wild mushrooms, known for their hallucinogenic properties, might have given Mary the idyllic experience she later described? Of the light shining like silver, reflecting on leaves and on the wings of swans, along with the episode and dialogue with the fairy? I'm leaning towards the whole event being led by the dangerous effects of the mushrooms (and the soil) she was around, combined with (likely) having been told to stay away from fairy rings, as was the old custom. If she then ventured out and picked flowers in them (and maybe, in curiosity, some of the mushrooms too), she could have transferred particles of them onto her eyes and into her mouth. She would have been understandably frightened at the loss of her sight. Worried about more repercussions, the story could have been invented to put the blame on someone else, in this case, a malicious fairy. Just an idea. 

In any case, this is a valuable piece of history that tells us that fairy ring superstitions were still very active, and believed, in early nineteenth century Falkirk. The Victorian author noted that 7 May 1848 was the next anniversary, and invited the reader to visit Bentend to see if they can see the enchanted swans for themselves. The next anniversary at the time of writing is 7 May 2030 so if you're around, maybe pay a visit - but stay away from any fairy rings!

Source: The Scottish Journal of Topography, Antiquities, Traditions. Volume 1. 1848-1848. Edinburgh, 1848.

History is long list of dates, names and events that can make it, at time, feel impersonal and hide the real tragedy that existed for those living through it. 

The other day I was looking through an inventory of belongings of the Scottish kings and queens, dating from the late fifteenth century. In a list of hangings, beds and other furnishings made in 1561 I saw a note in one of the margins: 'tint in the king's ludgeing'. The clerk's job was to account for any possessions that were gifted, lent or that broke or needed mending. On this occasion, he was recording damage caused to the belongings of Lord Darnley, in the explosion that took his life on the night of 9-10 February 1567. 

Lord Darnley, Public Domain, Rijksmuseum

Darnley was an erratic and ambitious man, the husband of Mary, Queen of Scots. She had famously married him after Elizabeth I offered her own court favourite Robert Dudley Earl of Leicester as a husband to the Scottish Queen. Elizabeth, who called Darnley 'yonder long lad', on account of his height of 6ft 2 inches, would keep a close eye on Mary as a contender for the English throne. Both shared a grandfather in Henry VII and Elizabeth of York, Elizabeth descended from their son Henry - and Mary from Henry's sister Margaret. But by 1567 Darnley had shown that he was a disrespectful and careless king. There are reports that he neglected to go to church with Mary for worship, and rumours of his sexual infidelity. Bursting into a room with Mary heavily pregnant and stabbing her close advisor David Rizzio at Holyrood in 1566 was a scandalous event that shocked people who heard about it all over Europe. With Mary already trying to remove herself from the marriage, suspicious eyes also turned on her when his half-naked body was found in the orchard of his home at Kirk O Fields in Edinburgh. An explosion caused by gunpowder had propelled him out of his lodgings through a window. This sudden and violent death came just eleven months after Rizzio's murder. 

What is interesting about the royal inventory is that each item that was lost or destroyed in the explosion was recorded, and so we can piece together what Darnley's lodgings would have looked like on that winter night in 1567.

The king slept in style, and in August 1565 Mary had given him a bed decorated in shades of violet, gold and silver. It was a four-posted bed, with hangings around it also in violet damask, fairly plain and without fringes. The inventory states that this was lost in the king's lodgings as a result of the blast and was recorded as a:

‘bed of violett broun velvot pasmentit with a pasment maid of gold and silver furnissit with ruif head pece and pandis and thre under pandis. Off the quhilkis under pandis there is ane bot half pasmentit and thre courtingis [curtains] of violet dames [damask] without frenyeis [fringes] or pasment upon the same courtingis’.

Another bed was described as lost in his chambers, one probably for Darnley's use and the other likely to have been that of a servant, accompanying official or chamberlain. This one was silver and green damask: 

'A bed of grene dames garnisit with ruis heidpece three single pandis twa underpandis and three curtenis all pasmentit with silvir pasmentis and freinyeit with silvir and grene silk togiddir with a covering of grene taffeteis stickit and one little burdclaith of grene velvot'.

Darnley also had a cloth of estate - a usually sumptuous fabric which was suspended above a chair when the lord or royal dined or greeted guests. It signalled his or her status and importance and conveyed an air of authority. Darnley's was made with black velvet with a fringe of black silk. The fact it was black also signalled that you were in the company of someone of importance, with black being expensive to buy due to the dyes needed. In the inventory the cloth of estate was also destroyed, and noted as 

'Ane claith [cloth] of estate of blak velvot furnisit with thre pandis and the tail all freinyeit [fringed] with blak silk.'

In addition, Darnley's red and green velvet cushions were lost in the blaze: 

'Foure cusscheonis of reid velvot

Three cusscheonis of grene velvot'

The scene after Darnley's murder. Wikimedia Commons.

He also had a number of tapestries hung in his lodgings for decoration and to keep the rooms warm unfurled against cold plastered walls. They also conveyed opulence, being expensive to create and made from the best quality materials. Sometimes pieces were woven with real gold and silver thread. Six pieces of a tapestry of the 'hunter of coninghis' [the hunter of rabbits] were ruined, leaving one that survived. These were hanging, at the time of the explosion, in Darnley's garderobe, usually the room that contained the toilet. Sometimes the garderobe though was used to describe the room clothing was kept in. In any case, it probably made sense to keep a toilet or a dressing room warm. 

'Ane tapestrie of the hunter of coninghis [conys - 'rabbits'] contening seven peces – sex of thir peces wes tint in the K. gardrop at his death.'

Other tapestries were recorded as destroyed too, but they seem to have been less expensive. Six of them were lost, and they were described as:

‘peces of teapestrie of all fortis mekle and little auld and new’.

There were also:

Scheittis [sheets] of hollane [holland cloth] and lyning alsweill great as small auld and new'.

Seeing items like this described in first-hand accounts really bring home the terror of that night in Edinburgh in 1567, and the death of a man whose presence changed history. 

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Mary Queen of Scots features heavily in my second book, Power Couples of the Tudor Era, published by Pen and Sword Books. It explores the contributions couples made to their own times as well as how they influenced our own. She is discussed in terms of the relationship between Bess of Hardwick and George Talbot Earl of Shrewsbury. Order your copy here. 

We paid a visit to Aldermaston Church recently to look at the Tudor monument that, I'd read online, was inside, but sadly found it firmly locked. We even loaded up on a lovely lunch at the Hind's Head first for some church hunting in the afternoon. Anyway, luckily I found details of the inside of the church - and the tomb - in an old copy of the Berkshire Archaeological Journal of 1911. 

The tomb I had in my sights was that of Sir George and Elizabeth Forster, a prominent Aldermaston couple who lived during the sixteenth century. 

Aldermaston has a long history. It was owned by King Harold in Saxon times, and after his death at the Battle of Hastings in 1066, passed into the hands of the Norman kings. Henry I, William the Conqueror's son, granted it to Sir Robert Achard, and it passed from there into the Delamare and Forster families through centuries of marriage. As the church contains monuments in stone, brass and glass to these three families, and their names are knitted in with the history of Aldermaston, it suggests that they lived in the village, and it is believed that a manor house existed there from the 1400s. The Forsters also owned the advowson of St Mary's church, the authority to name the priest in service there, and so certainly had local control. Interestingly, the family that I was going to visit were represented at the pub we randomly popped in to have lunch. The Forster's emblem was the hind's head.

Tomb of George and Elizabeth Forster, Berkshire Archaeological Journal, 1911. Public Domain Mark, via archive.org

St Mary's in Aldermaston, George and Elizabeth's parish church, dates to the Norman period, although an earlier church existed in the village at the Domesday Survey of 1086. It was enlarged and maintained throughout the later centuries, and rescued in the nineteenth century with essential stabilising work. Some of the glass inside the church displays the Forster arms, along with the branches of related families. The Forster's would have seen representations inside the church, of the Annunciation and the Coronation of the Virgin, both dating to around the thirteenth century. There were also windows showing eight armorial shields with the arms of Forster, Achard, Delamare, Popham, Harpsden, St. Martin, Zouch, Milbourne and Roches families. The Sandys family are also represented, with George and Elizabeth's son, Humfrey having married a daughter of the Lord Sandys of The Vyne in Hampshire.

The Forsters would also have known the medieval painting of St Christopher in the church and the Tudor wooden triptych thought to have been made between 1480 and 1540. This depicts the story of the Nativity, created by the artist Adrian von Orlei, from the Low Countries. The church they knew was brightly-coloured, with decorations around the church painted in red and yellow. Another wall painting, believed to have been of St Nicholas, also brightened the walls. 

George and Elizabeth Forster are commemorated in an alabaster tomb inside the south chapel of the church. Elizabeth was the granddaughter of Sir Thomas Delamare, explaining the link between the shields and other emblems inside the church. The effigies are created just a little larger than life, at just over six feet long. George was a courtier during the reign of Henry VIII, and attended the celebrations at the Field of the Cloth of Gold in 1520, peace talks disguised as a show of strength between Henry and the French king, Francis I, in Calais. He was the son of Sir Humfrey Forster of Harpsden near Henley-on-Thames. Interestingly, Elizabeth is not discussed often with relation to the tomb other than to state that she was George's wife. In fact, according to Kenneth Hillier, she was the real local power behind the marriage. Hillier, in his article on Elizabeth's father, A Rebel of 1483: Sir Thomas de la Mare, points out that she inherited Aldermaston after the deaths of his other heirs. So it was Elizabeth that held the manor of Aldermaston, and was therefore George's through their marriage. He also discusses Sir Thomas' part in the 1483 Buckingham Rebellion against Richard III. He rose in Newbury that autumn, when Elizabeth was a teenager, and was pardoned in 1484. It doesn't seem that he was among those who fled to Brittany to the Earl of Richmond. Elizabeth had a sister named Frideswide, who she shared the Aldermaston estate with, but became sole inheritor when Frideswide died. Their father had supported Lancaster during the Wars of the Roses, switching to the allegiance of York under Edward IV, who knighted him. 

George and Elizabeth Forster, Aldermaston Church. Berkshire Archaeological Journal, 1911. Public Domain Mark, via archive.org

George Forster is depicted in armour, which is no surprise as he proved himself as a soldier and was made a Knight of the Bath. For this honour, George would have met with other knights to be inducted, taken a bath the evening before the ceremony and the king would have made the sign of the cross on his shoulder and kissed it. It was a very special honour to have and placed him in an elite force of knights rewarded specially by the king. George's armour on the effigy is well-preserved and shows the hind's head symbol. Especially detailed, it also shows the inside of the helmet being lined with material, providing comfort for the wearer. The author of the Archaeological Journal wrote that, in 1911, 'the effigy presents us with a most complete specimen of the armour of this Transitional period'. George's feet lie resting on a stag, and he wears a Lancastrian 'SS' collar and a portcullis and Tudor rose pendant. 

Elizabeth is depicted on her effigy with her head resting on two pillows supported by angels - one on each side. She wears formal robes, including a cloak secured by a chain, with a pendant in the shape of a rose. A popular symbol, a small dog, bites the hem of her cloak, often used to portray loyalty. The visitor in 1911 saw traces of colour and gilt used to decorate Elizabeth's gable style headdress and George's SS collar.

Underneath the figures on the table tomb below are figures of knights in armour in various poses, and female figures in slightly different dress and position. Another lady was carved into the tomb on its south side, kneeling with her right hand raised. On the north side is a knight in armour and the visitor suggests that these might depict the couple's son Humfrey Forster and his wife. It is not known whether the many figures represent George and Elizabeth's children or 'weepers', depictions of people sometimes known to the deceased, mourning their loss. On the effigy of Richard Beauchamp Earl of Warwick his daughters, sons and their husbands and wives are depicted, their identity confirmed by the accompaniment of their individual coats of arms. 

George died in 1533, the year Anne Boleyn was crowned and gave birth to Princess Elizabeth. The couple had lived close to a court that saw enormous change. An anointed queen of almost twenty years, Katherine of Aragon, had been discarded and her marriage to Henry VIII annulled. They had seen Henry's accession to the throne in 1509, and the execution of Henry VII's tenacious advisors Empson and Dudley early in the young king's reign. The Tudor traveller and explorer of England and Wales, John Leland, believed that George and Elizabeth had twenty children, perhaps accounting for the figures depicted on the base of their tomb. It's also believed that the effigy at Aldermaston was erected while George was alive, and he may have had some control over how he and Elizabeth were represented. The visitor to the tomb in 1911 also saw a helmet and crest fixed onto a bracket, said to have been George's own. 

The couple are interesting not only because of their finely-detailed effigies, giving us so much detail about clothing and jewellery of Henry VIII's reign, but that, like a number of women, Elizabeth held the real local power in the relationship through her father, the previous owner of the manor of Aldermaston. However through their marriage, George maintained control, although there is no doubt that Elizabeth was known in the village and would have been forging relationships, gaining local allies and planning the futures of their children.

Liked this? You might also like Historic Pubs: The Hind's Head, Aldermaston, The Lost Apartments of Anne Boleyn at Windsor Castle, and A Tudor Assault at Padworth, 1534.

Interested in women's history? Check out my book, Forgotten Women of the Wars of the Roses published by Pen and Sword Books. It discusses many woman of the fifteenth century conflict that played parts we don't often hear about today. You can Order your copy here.

If you like Tudor history, check out my second book, Power Couples of the Tudor Era, also published by Pen and Sword Books, which explores the contributions couples made to their own times as well as how they influenced our own. Order your copy here. 

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Sources: 

Rev P.H. Ditchfield, Berkshire Archaeological Journal, Volume 17, Reading, 1911. 

Kenneth Hillier, Sir Thomas de la Mare, A Rebel of 1483, richardiii.net [accessed 6 February 2026]

Windsor Castle was a royal residence since it was first built by William the Conqueror shortly after his accession in 1066, and due to its age, has undergone many changes and renovations since it was first built. These were not only commissioned to maintain existing buildings, but various apartments, towers and precincts were built there from scratch from the early medieval period.

Take a walk around Windsor today and you'll notice that some of the Tudor rooms no longer survive as Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn would have known them. Work on the castle was undertaken by later Tudors, but more extensively by Charles II, who made adjustments to many of the older apartments to make a palatial Baroque-inspired home. Luckily though, some of the Tudor building accounts still survive, which can give us a glimpse into how Anne Boleyn would have lived as queen at Windsor in around 1533, at the height of her influence. 

Anne Boleyn was born in around 1500/1501, and was the daughter of Sir Thomas Boleyn of Hever Castle, Kent. She spent some time in the French court as a young girl, learning royal manners and protocol. When she returned to England in her twenties, as a lady in waiting to the then Queen Katherine of Aragon, she immediately attracted Henry VIII's eye. He saw in Anne a chance to remove himself from his almost twenty-year marriage which had produced many pregnancies but only one living child, a daughter named Mary. Desperately looking to produce a son, he turned towards the younger Anne. Katherine and Henry's marriage, despite the queen's bitter protests, was annulled and Henry broke with Rome, bringing the spiritual health of the realm und his control, instead of the Pope's. Anne and Henry were married and Anne was crowned queen in June 1533, already pregnant with Henry's child. 

Windsor Castle (Jo Romero)

Interestingly, many of the castle's building accounts date to this year, which marked Anne's marriage to Henry, her anointing as queen, and her successful delivery of a daughter, Elizabeth. The previous year she had been at Windsor Castle to receive the title of Marquess of Pembroke, a move that brought Anne into the aristocracy in her own right and paved the way, in the rise in her social status, for marriage to the king.

When Anne was at Windsor she would have resided in the old medieval lodgings built for the queen which were, up until recently, those of the now-divorced Katherine of Aragon. The queen's 'watching chamber', a reception room for Anne's guests on the first floor, had two chimneys, both of them repaired in June 1533. A 'great wyndow' was also repaired there in the same year, with another three windows referenced in the accounts books. There is another reference to decorators who daubed yellow and white paint on the 'stayers and galary ffrome the Kynges Chapell unto the Quenes Watchyng Chambre' in July 1533. There is also an entry for 'scouring' of a looking-glass 'in the roof of the Queen's Privy Chamber' that June, possibly reference to a skylight. The historian Sir William Henry St John Hope does mention that skylights appear elsewhere in these accounts and so did exist in the Tudor complex at Windsor.

rediAnne Boleyn, head and shoulders, in a roundel; below, a putto holding a torch downwards, Anne Boleyn's head and an axe. Engraving by J. Houbraken, 1738, after H. Holbein the younger. Wellcome Collection.  Source: Wellcome Collection.

Just north of her Privy Chamber, Anne had her own Great Chamber. She would have paused to look out of the grounds of the castle through the same bay window Elizabeth Woodville had gazed out of, built in 1479. Hope, in the early twentieth century, researched the location of Anne's chamber of estate and privy chamber at Windsor and believed they 'probably occupied the range towards the bailey between the watching chamber and the little turret on the west called La Rose'. I have looked at various maps of the castle and visited it often, but still can't place exactly where this would have been. If you do know, leave a comment below and I'll update the post.

Anne had more apartments in the castle, thought by Hope to have been 'contained in the first floor of King Henry VII’s building, and were approached from her dining chamber, through a narrow passage which formed her closet.' She also had access to her own stairs, today the Queen's Privy Stair', which led to the park. This is where she would have walked if she needed access to the Jewel house, which Hope stated was on the upper floor. 

Anne was newly crowned when glaziers set to work on new glass set in lead frames 'by the Closset', and commissioned a religious work too, the 'new settyng in lead the Image off saynt Peter'. In the same room, another 15 panes of glass were cleaned and repaired, all 'of imagery glass'. Anne's own bedchamber had a bay window which looked out towards the castle's bailey, and another bay window which was larger, facing north. From this room, Hope says that a doorway opened out into the armory, not full of swords and helmets but cupboards. More work on these windows was commissioned in June and July 1533. 

But even when Henry was dealing with state business, Anne wasn't alone at Windsor. There is evidence through these surviving accounts that her staff had lodgings on the ground floor, with family members also having chambers of their own near Anne. Her mother Elizabeth is mentioned, along with her sister Mary and sister-in-law Lady Rochford, married to Anne's brother George. Her uncle, James Boleyn and his wife also had their own chamber. The Lady Worcester is also mentioned as having a chamber near the queen's apartments. This was Elizabeth Somerset, Countess of Worcester, who would turn against Anne less than three years later and provide information to the king about her alleged treasonous activity. The accounts mention doorways, staircases and connecting rooms around Anne's own lodgings in the castle and it is likely that these saw many of the conspiracies and whispers that eventually brought the power of the queen crashing down in mid-1536. 

Anne's private apartments at Windsor then, according to the accounts of 1533 interpreted and built upon by Sir William Hope in 1913, offer a new look at how Anne might have lived when in residence at Windsor castle early in her reign. She would have reached her chambers via a stone staircase, the walls painted yellow and white. Her rooms were light and airy, with many windows, including large bay windows through which she could look out at the castle precincts. Other windows contained stained glass showing images of saints, including St Peter. There were chimneys and fireplaces to help keep her warm in the colder months, and she would have enjoyed the additions to the castle carried out by her father-in-law Henry VII in the 1490s and early 1500s. 

Tudor wills show that rooms were decorated in bright colours, often gilded and contained a wide range of textures. Anne's rooms would have been decorated in accordance of her rank as queen, with richly-worked tapestries, silk cushions and hangings around her bed for warmth and privacy. 

The Chapel of St George, where St George's Day celebrations and inductions into the Order of the Knight of the Garter were made, was a few minutes' walk from where she resided, and she would have visited the chapel and seen the suns and roses chiselled by stonemasons in Edward IV's reign. She may even have paused at the grave of Elizabeth Woodville, who had served as queen in similarly dangerous years. We also know that she was able to lodge members of her household and family near her, so they could provide advice, comfort and companionship in those early years as Henry's queen. 

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Did you know that Anne Boleyn had an influential female relative who was active during the Wars of the Roses? You can find out all about her and other forgotten women of the period in my book Forgotten Women of the Wars of the Roses published by Pen and Sword Books. It discusses many woman of the fifteenth century conflict that played parts we don't often hear about to day. You can Order your copy here.

Interested in Tudor history? You might also like my second book, Power Couples of the Tudor Era, published by Pen and Sword Books, which explores the contributions couples made to their own times as well as how they influenced our own. Order your copy here. 

Never want to miss a post? Subscribe to my newsletter here: 

Source: Sir William Henry St John Hope, Windsor Castle: An Architectural History. Volume 1. 1913. via Getty Research Institute, archive.org.