JO THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



as the " Walking Fire " is evident from the old story " How Robin 

 Goodf ellow led a company of Fellowes out of their way " : * "A com- 

 pany of yoimg men having been making merry with their sweethearts, 

 were, at their coming home, to come over a heath. Robin Good fel- 

 low, knowing of it, met them, and, to make some pastime, he led them 

 up and down the heath a whole night, so that they could not get out 

 of it ; for he went before them in the shape of ' a walking fire,' which 

 they all saw and followed till the day did appear ; then Robin left 

 them, and at his departure spake these words : 



' Get home, you merry lads, 

 Tell your mammies and your dads, 

 And all those that newes desire 

 How you saw a walking fire ; 

 "Wenches that doe smile and lispe 

 Use to call me Willy Wispe.' " 



The Will-o'-the-Wisp is not, it would seem, confined to land, sailors 

 often meeting with it at sea, an elegant description of which is given 

 by Ariel in " The Tempest " (Act i, sc. 2) : 



"... Sometimes I'd divide 

 And burn in many places ; on the topmast, 

 The yards and bowspit ; would I flame distinctly, 

 Then meet and join." 



It is called, by the French and Spaniards inhabiting the coasts of 

 the Mediterranean, St. Helene's or St. Telme's fires ; by the Italians, 

 the fire of St. Peter and St. Nicholas, f It is also known as the fire of 

 St. Helen, St. Herm, and St. Clare. Whenever it appeared as a single 

 flame it was supposed by the ancients to be Helena, the sister of Castor 

 and Pollux, and to bring ill luck, from the calamities which this lady 

 is known to have caused in the Trojan war. When it came as a 

 double flame, it was called Castor and Pollux, and accounted a good 

 omen. It has also been described as a little blaze of fire, sometimes 

 appearing by night on the tops of soldiers' lances, or at sea on masts 

 and sail-yards, whirling and leaping in the twinkling of an eye from 

 one place to another. According to some, it never appears but after 

 a tempest, and is supposed to lead people to suicide by drowning. 

 Douce,]; commenting on the passage in " The Tempest " quoted above, 

 thinks that Shakespeare consulted Batman's *' Golden Books of the 

 Leaden Goddes," who, speaking of Castor and Pollux, says, " They 

 were figured like two lamps or crescent lights, one on the top of a 

 mast, the other on the stem or foreship." He adds that, if the first 

 light appears on the foreship and ascends upward, it is a sign of good 

 luck ; if either light begins at the topmast and descends toward the 



* nazlitt's "Fairy Mythology of Shakespeare," 1875, 186. 

 f Brand's "Popular Antiquities," 1849, iii, 400, 401. 

 X Deuce's "Illustrations of Shakespeare," 1839, 3. 



