Editing Crop circle (section)

== Folklore ==
[[File:Diablefaucheur.jpg|thumb|upright=1.1|1678 pamphlet on the "[[Mowing-Devil]]"]]
Researchers of crop circles have linked modern crop circles to old [[folkloric]] tales to support the claim that they are not artificially produced.<ref name=dutch /> Crop circles are culture dependent: they appear mostly in developed and secularised Western countries where people are receptive to [[New Age]] beliefs, including Japan, but they do not appear at all in other zones, such as Muslim countries.{{sfn|Margry & Roodenburg|2007|page=152}}

Fungi can cause circular areas of crop to die, probably the origin of tales of "[[Fairy ring|fairie rings]]".<ref name=dutch /> Tales also mention [[Will-o'-the-wisp|balls of light]] many times but never in relation to crop circles.<ref name=dutch />

A 17th-century English [[woodcut]] called the ''[[Mowing-Devil]]'' depicts the [[devil]] with a [[scythe]] mowing (cutting) a circular design in a field of oats. The [[pamphlet]] containing the image states that the farmer, disgusted at the wage demanded by his mower for his work, insisted that he would rather have "the devil himself" perform the task. Crop circle researcher Jim Schnabel does not consider this to be a historical precedent for crop circles because the stalks were cut down, not bent.<ref name=dutch /> The circular form indicated to the farmer that it had been caused by the devil.<ref name=dutch />

In the 1948 German story ''Die zwölf Schwäne'' (''The Twelve Swans''), a farmer every morning finds a circular ring of flattened grain in his field. After several attempts, his son sees twelve [[swan maiden|princesses disguised as swans]], who take off their disguises and dance in the field. Crop rings produced by fungi may have inspired such tales, since folklore considers that these rings are created by dancing wolves or fairies.<ref name=dutch />