Star Jelly

My eyes surveyed my sploshing feet as I walked a track on the aptly named Water Hill near the Warren House Inn. The map promised track but, after days of rain, this route was happier as a stream, submerged with flow. In my peripheral vision I saw more water, but solid. A fist-size mass of what looked like melting ice. But that was impossible. It was a November day but exceptionally mild. Bending down to inspect I saw this semi-opaque crystal-like substance was not icy, but gelatinous.

It turns out this odd glob is known as Star Jelly. What a weird name? The jelly is self-explanatory, but where does the star come from? A bit of Googling and I soon discovered that this semi-translucent gunk has a very old and peculiar history.

Epithets and Etymology

According to the OED (1989, Vol XVI, p 527) Star Jelly is first recorded as Sterre Slyme c. 1440, although Wikpedia gives an earlier citation to Stella terrae (earth star) by a medical physician, John of Gaddesden (1280-1361) as “a certain mucilaginous substance lying upon the earth” accompanied with the suggestion it could be used to treat abscesses.

Further OED entries help to exemplify the starry connection:

• in Elyot’s Dictionary of 1552 there is a reference to ‘certayne impressions in the ayer, which we call starre fallyng, because it so appereth to our sightes‘.
• In 1712 J. Morton writes, in Nat. Hist. Northhamtonsh. of the ‘Gelatinous Body call’d Star Gelly, Star-shot, or Star-fall’n, so named because vulgarly believ’d to fall from a star‘.
• A Leicestershire reference of 1756 calls it ‘Star-slough‘ but observes that it normally appears after rain and that it may fall from the clouds.
• Other names for it include ‘Starslubber‘ (1781) and ‘Star-slutch‘ (1791).

Tim Sandles (2016) on his Legendary Dartmoor blog takes up the topic of Star Jelly and gives it a Dartmoor dimension. In addition to looking at sitings and theories about its origin, Sandles compiles some of the outlandish local suggestions of its cause including: Stag’s semen, deer spit, and Piskie Puke.

These Dartmoor speculations aside, what is missing from any of the star jelly mentions is an adequate explanation as to why this freakish goo was associated with fallen stars or, less poetically, meteors.

The Predated Amphibian Hypothesis

Not all mentions from the Middle Ages relate this jelly to fallen stars. Some suggested that it was innards of frogs left behind after predators had taken them. Weasels, stoats, badgers, buzzards and heron have all been implicated. Since the age of enlightenment, froggy theories became more dominant, seemingly as a result of observations of black eggs sometimes being found nearby (O’Reilly et al, 2014).

Compounded by Star Jelly’s relative rarity, the link between these bizarre blobs and amphibian spawn has only recently been revealing itself. In the digital age, where more sitings are being photographed and described online , O’Reilly et al (2014) were able to pull together an evidential database in which a common association of Star Jelly with black eggs was observed. They say:

‘The peak time for star jelly without eggs seems to be the autumn. The presence of eggs may seem more likely in the spring, but some eggs are already present in frog ovaries in autumn. The oocytes of the common frog develop in annual batches, taking three years to reach full maturity in the autumn prior to ovulation. So, any adult female in autumn will have a batch of eggs ready to lay the following spring, plus two further batches at earlier stages developing to be ready for subsequent years.‘

O’Reilly et al, 2014, p91-92

The frog eggs only get get encased in jelly when they leave the ovaries at the time of spring mating. Within the female frog’s body the eggs and the jelly are held separately. When attacked and dismembered by a predator, the eggs might be released and the ‘oviducts may be stimulated to release their jelly by the trauma of the attack‘. This disgorged jelly may then:

‘absorb water from the soil or rain, producing the large masses that people see. If the predator removes the frog’s body and takes the ovary as well, people will not see any eggs and only the oviduct and/or jelly will remain contributing to the ‘mystery’.’

O’Reilly et al, 2014, p92

The following year (2015) the BBC broadcast a programme called Nature’s Weirdest Events in which they investigated the star jelly phenomenon (cited on Wikipedia). For this programme a sample was sent for DNA analysis by the Natural History Museum. Previous attempts at DNA analysis by others had been inconclusive. This time though, there was a definitive result. The jelly was that of frog, although magpie DNA mixed in with the sample suggested the black and white bird may have had a hand in the demise of the amphibian.

The mucilaginous mystery is over – murderous predators, not meteors are to blame. But it is not entirely resolved is it? There remains an enigma as to why this jelly had, in early medicine, folklore and culture, a celestial connection. Was it just fanciful notions, gaining traction and being replicated in the absence of any better ideas? Perhaps so. Yet, because of its extraordinary history, star-jelly’s gloopy and poetic mystique still remains.

References

O’Reilly, M., Ross, N. and Longrigg, S., 2014. Recent observations of “mystery star jelly” in Scotland appear to confirm one origin as spawn jelly from frogs or toads. Glasgow Naturalist, 26(Part 1), pp.89-92.

Sandles, T. 2016. Star Jelly. Legendary Dartmoor. www.legendarydartmoor.co.uk. 24th March 2016. [Accessed 13th Nov 2022]

Somerville, W. 1740. Canto III in Hobbinol, or the Rural Games. A Burlesque Poem in Blank Verse. J. Stagg: London.

Suckling, Sir J. 1659. ‘Farewell to Love’, in The Last Remains of Sr John Suckling. Humphrey Moseley: London. [Sir John Suckling lived from 1609 to 1641. This collection was published posthumously]

Wikipedia, no date. Star jelly. wikipedia.org. [Accessed 13th Nov 2022].