diff --git a/docs/manual/CoreTasks/delete.html b/docs/manual/CoreTasks/delete.html
index a43491139..87236e7e3 100644
--- a/docs/manual/CoreTasks/delete.html
+++ b/docs/manual/CoreTasks/delete.html
@@ -45,6 +45,13 @@ and it doesn't seem to work, read up on the
 in <strong>Directory-based Tasks</strong>, and see the
 <code>defaultexcludes</code> attribute below.
 
+<p>For historical reasons <code>&lt;delete dir="x"/&gt;</code> is
+  different from <code>&lt;delete&gt;&lt;fileset
+  dir="x"/&gt;&lt;/delete&gt;</code>, it will try to remove everything
+  inside "x" including "x" itself, not taking default excludes into
+  account, blindly following all symbolic links.  If you need more
+  control, use a nested <code>&lt;fileset&gt;</code>.</p>
+
 <h3>Parameters</h3>
 <table border="1" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0">
   <tr>
diff --git a/src/tests/antunit/taskdefs/delete-and-symlinks-test.xml b/src/tests/antunit/taskdefs/delete-and-symlinks-test.xml
index d80553721..c3791af13 100644
--- a/src/tests/antunit/taskdefs/delete-and-symlinks-test.xml
+++ b/src/tests/antunit/taskdefs/delete-and-symlinks-test.xml
@@ -31,13 +31,6 @@
     <symlink action="delete" link="${link}"/>
   </target>
 
-  <target name="xtestLinkCycle" if="unix">
-    <mkdir dir="${input}/A/B"/>
-    <property name="link" location="${input}/A/B/C"/>
-    <symlink link="${link}" resource="${input}/A"/>
-    <delete dir="${input}"/>
-  </target>
-
   <target name="testNotFollowedLink" if="unix">
     <mkdir dir="${input}/A/B"/>
     <mkdir dir="${input}/C"/>