Folklore of the Penny Bun

Folklore of Boletus edulis (Porcini / Penny Bun)

🍄‍🟫Forest Spirit’s Gift🍄‍🟫

In Slavic, Baltic, and Central European folklore, porcini are believed to be gifts of the Leshy (forest guardian spirit). Finding a large, healthy porcini was a sign of the Leshy’s favor, and sometimes a token of safe passage through the woods.

🍄‍🟫 “Penny Bun” in England 🍄‍🟫

In Britain, the mushroom is called the penny bun because its rounded, golden-brown cap resembles a little bread roll. This association ties it to hearth, home, and nourishment. It was thought lucky to find one near your home, as it meant prosperity would “rise like bread” in the household.

🍄‍🟫 Tree Companions 🍄‍🟫

Folklore often stresses that porcini only grow in companionship with trees (especially pine, spruce, and oak). This gave them a symbolic role as a bridge between worlds—the human, the fungal, and the arboreal. They were seen as proof of the hidden kinship of all living things.

🍄‍🟫 The “King” Mushroom 🍄‍🟫

In Italy and parts of France, porcini are called “the king of mushrooms,” not only because of their size and taste, but because they were thought to draw prosperity and noble luck to those who found them. Peasants who stumbled on a large flush of porcini sometimes called it a “poor man’s treasure.”

🍄‍🟫 Weather & Omens 🍄‍🟫

In parts of Eastern Europe, the sudden appearance of porcini after rainfall was linked to moon cycles and fertility. It was believed that mushrooms rose from the earth because the moon “called them out.” Porcini were considered particularly lucky to find under a waxing moon, as they would bring growth and prosperity.

🍄‍🟫 Witches & Foragers 🍄‍🟫

Unlike fly agaric, porcini wasn’t considered dangerous or “witch’s food,” but some folk healers dried them and added them to herbal blends for vitality and strength. Because of their rarity and high value, they were sometimes seen as enchanted food, reserved for honored guests or offered to ancestors during autumn feasts.

Porcini in folklore are symbols of luck, abundance, fertility, and the blessings of the forest spirits—very different from the shadowy lore of poisonous mushrooms