74 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Strathmore " (1875, page 100), tells us how "many a poor benighted 

 wight hath this iincannie warlock driven to his wits'-end by his un- 

 couth gambols and deceptive light, and many a bold and valiant 

 knight hath he laid Jiors de combat on the marshy plain." Milton in 

 his " Paradise Lost " (book ix, page 634), while explaining the phi- 

 losophy of this superstitious appearance, alludes to the notion which 

 associates it with an evil spirit in the well-known lines : 



"... A wandering fire, 

 Compact of unctuous vapor, which the night 

 Condenses, and the cold environs round, 

 Kindled through agitation to a flame, 

 Which oft, they say, some evil spirit attends, 

 Hovering and blazing with delusive light. 

 Misleads th' ainazed night-wand'rer from his way 

 To bogs and mires, and oft through pond or pool, 

 There swallowed up and lost from succor far." 



In Kormandy, the peasant believes that the Will-o'-the-Wisp is a 

 cruel and malicious spirit whom it is highly dangerous to encounter. 

 Mademoiselle Bosquet, in her "Normandie Romanesque et Merveil- 

 leuse," says that it follows and persecutes any unfortunate person who 

 runs away from it ; his only chance of escape, when sore-pressed, be- 

 ing to throw^ himself on his face and to invoke the Divine assistance. 

 Hence the Feux Follet, as it is called, is a source of terror, and its 

 weird appearance is much dreaded by old and young ; many stories 

 being told of the injury done to unwary travelers by its wicked 

 knavery. 



Again, a Danish tradition affirms that Jack-o'-lanterns are the 

 spirits of unrighteous men, w^ho by a false glimmer seek to mislead 

 the wayfarer and to decoy him into bogs and moors. The best safe- 

 guard against them, when they appear, is to turn one's cap inside 

 out. One should never point at them, as they will come if pointed 

 at. It is also said that, if any one calls them, they will come and 

 light the person who called.* A popular belief in Sweden says that 

 " Jack-with-the-Lantern " was formerly a mover of landmarks, and 

 for his unjust acts is doomed to wander backward and forward with a 

 light in his hand, as if he were in search of something. Thus he who 

 in his lifetime has been guilty of such a crime is believed to have no 

 peace or rest in his grave after death, but to rise every midnight, and, 

 with a lantern in his hand, to proceed to the spot where in days gone 

 by the landmark had stood which he had fraudulently removed. On 

 reaching the place, however, he is seized, says Mr. Thorpe, with the 

 same desire which instigated him in his lifetime when he went forth 

 to remove his neighbor's landmark, and he says as he goes, in a harsh, 

 hoarse voice : " It is right ! it is right ! it is right ! " But, on his return- 

 ing, qualms of conscience and anguish seize him, and he then exclaims : 



* Thorpe's "North-German Mythology," 1851, ii, 211. 



