68 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Thus, in remote villages and secluded country nooks the peasant, 

 while not forgetting the traditions handed down to him, continues to 

 believe with implicit faith in those quaint and weird fancies which 

 have invested the Will-o'-the-Wisp with such a peculiar dread. This 

 terror, as we shall point out, in a great measure originated in the many 

 tales and legends that were in past centuries framed to explain and 

 account for this deceptive phenomenon. 



Referring, then, in the first place, to the various names assigned to 

 it many of these are extremely curious, differing according to the 

 country and locality. Its most popular appellation, Will-o'-the-Wisp, 

 was probably derived from its customary appearance ; this wandering 

 meteor having been personified because it looked to the spectators like 

 a person carrying a lighted straw torch in his hand. Hence it has 

 been termed Jack, Gill, Joan, Will, or Robin, indifferently, in accord- 

 ance with the fancy of the rustic mind ; the supposed spirit of the 

 lamp being thought to resemble either a male or female apparition. 

 Hentzner, for instance, in his " Travels in England " (1598), relates how, 

 returning from Canterbury to Dover, " there were a great many Jack- 

 a-lanthorns, so that we were quite seized with horror and amazement." 



In Worcestershire, the phenomenon is termed by the several names 

 of '' Hob-and-his-Lanthorn," "Hobany's Lanthom," and "Hoberdy's 

 Lanthorn " the word Hob in each case being the same name as occurs 

 in connection with the phrase hobgoblin. It appears that, in days 

 gone by. Hob was a frequent name among common people, and, curi- 

 ously enough, Coriolanus (Act ii, sc. 3) speaks of it as used by the 

 citizens of Rome : 



*' Why in this wolvish gown should I stand here, 

 To beg of Hob and Dick, that do appear 

 Their needless vouches? " 



Subsequently, Hob seems to have been used as a substitute for Hob- 

 goblin, as in Beaumont and Fletcher's "Monsieur Thomas" (Act iv, 



sc. 6) : 



"From elves, hobs, and fairies, 



From fire- drakes or fiends. 

 And such as the devil sends, 

 Defend us, good Heaven ! " 



A Northamptonshire name is Jinny Buntail, which is evidently a 

 corruption of Jinn with the burnt tail, or " Jild burnt tail," an allusion 

 to which occurs in Gayton's "Notes on Don Quixote" (1654, 97), 

 where we read of " Will with the Wispe, or Gyl burnt tayle," and, 

 again (2G8), of " An ignis fatuiis, or exhalation, and Gillon a burnt 

 tayle, or Will with the Wispe." The Somersetshire peasant talks of 

 " Joan-in-the-Wad," and " Jack-a-Wad," Wad and Wisp being synony- 

 mous. In Suffolk it was knoAvn as " A Gylham lamp," in reference to 

 which we are told in Gough's " Camden " (ii, 90) how, " in the low 



