Star jelly. United Kingdom

It all started with my daily visit to the great Patterdale Village Store. Tom and Gillian had been out on the fells looking for stags (we’re deep into rutting season – but more on that another  day). Up near Angle Tarn they had come across some glutinous jelly on the path. Whilst up on the fells, they had met Helen and Richard, from Hartsop Cottages, and Helen had done some research on the web and found out that it was called “star jelly”. According to good old wikipedia it is a “gelatinous substance, which, according to folklore, is deposited on the earth during meteor showers“. Blimey I thought – meteor showers over Ullswater, astral deposits, this has to be worth a look.

So that evening Morgan and I set off up to Boredale Hause to find some Stags and some star jelly. Obviously being mid October we set off in a downpour and as we got higher the wind got ever more entertaining. As we neared Boredale we veered off up the “short cut” path and sure enough there floating on a puddle was some “caca de luna” (Tom and I agree the Mexicans have the best name for it…).

I have to admit my “samples” were fairly meagre compared to the ones seen near Angle Tarn, which were apparently as big as your foot, but they were still intriguing.

By all account this phenomenon had been found on the hills of Scotland back in 2009, and the BBC had done some investigations, but no conclusive answers had been found (BBC Archive). Again according to wikipedia “explanations have ranged from the material being the remains of frogs and toads, or of worms, to the byproducts of cyanobacteria, to paranormal origins“. My first thought was that it could be connected to rutting stags. I’ll let you join the dots as it were but you get the picture. However Tom pointed out that the size of deposits up near Angle Tarn would put an elephant to shame, so maybe not….

Following that logic one assumes that unless we have a plague of giant mutant frogs in the Lake District then the same is true of that theory. Personally I like the idea of meteor showers and astral deposits. Who knows. If you do then let me know!