SHEFFIELD - Research has shown the legend of Santa Claus and his flying reindeer came from a magic mushroom hallucination cult, says Dr Patrick Harding, of Sheffield University. Dr Harding, a botanist and fungi expert, says witch doctors from tribes in parts of Lapland took the hallucinogenic Fly Agaric toadstool before they treated patients. An effect of the drug was to make people believe they and other objects were flying.