The weather has no effect upon the silly season. Rain or shine, for a month or two in the approach to harvest time, large perfect circles of flattened stalks appear suddenly in the middle of large fields of ripening corn. Within these circles, which may be anything from 10 to 100 feet across, the flattened crop is arranged in a spiral flowing from the centre to the outer edge.
The circumference is geometrically perfect, forming an abrupt boundary between the flattened corn within and the vertical stalks of the unaffected crop. They usually occur singly, but are also seen from time to time arranged in neat patterns - say three circles in a line or even five circles neatly positioned like the pips on the five-side of a die.
Medieval legend put these corn circles down to "mowing devils". A farmer, it seems, once asked a workman how much he would charge to cut a field of corn. On hearing the asking price, the farmer declared that he would as soon the devil himself mowed the field, as pay so much.
Next morning it seemed as if the devil had taken him at his word: his crops were flattened in the familiar round patterns.
Imaginative souls prefer to think of the circles as indications of a recent visit by a UFO. Those of a nostalgic turn of mind, on the other hand, remember that native Americans used to put their faith in such a shape as a protective omen, as Longfellow recalls:
Hiawatha, wise and thoughtful,
Spake and said to Minnehaha,
To his wife the Laughing Water:
`You shall bless tonight the cornfields,
Draw a magic circle round them,
To protect them from destruction'.
And some scientists with an abiding interest in these phenomena, and who like to refer to themselves as "cereologists", believe that the circles are caused by whirlwinds or vortices which develop when the wind blows over hills or cliffs.
But the most convincing explanation of all is that put forward by those of a sceptical turn of mind: they say that hoaxers are responsible, and that they watch in glee as puzzled cereologists measure the strange patterns with great care, and scratch their heads to find a plausible theory for the strange phenomena.
Whatever the reason, the area most prone to "corn circles" is that in the vicinity of the counties of Wiltshire and Hampshire in England. Oddly enough, to my knowledge Ireland has not so far been greatly affected by these strange occurrences.