564 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



Occidentals, however, by no means enjoy a monopoly of the ro- 

 mances and legends which may be gathered about the flickering flame 

 of the elusive ignis fatuus. Very few countries have developed so 

 rich a folk-lore as the Japanese, and the very fertile imaginations 

 of her people have not failed to apply many weird explanations to 

 an object capable of so many interpretations, sometimes investing their 

 ' ghost-fire ' with the same attributes that attach to our ' corpse-candle ' ; 

 again attributing to their 'demon-light' the possession of singularly 

 baleful influences ; or in the ' badger-blaze,' ' fox-flame ' and ' dragon- 

 torch ' finding a medium for the most varied witchery, . sometimes 

 comical, sometimes serious, and not always devoid of tragic results. 



According to accounts by Brinkley, it is related of the ' badger- 

 blaze' that it wanders in the Kawabe district of Settsu on rainy 

 nights, and that uninitiated rustics, mistaking it for the glowing 

 pipe of an ox-driver, hold commune with the badger, who is at all 

 times a sociable fellow, and have even lit their own tobacco at his 

 and puffed it in his company. Or again, at the base of the Ivatada 

 hills, in the province of Omi, there lies a lake from whose margin 

 on cloudy nights in early autumn a little ball of fire emerges. Creep- 

 ing toward the foot of the mountains, it grows as it goes, sometimes 

 swelling to a brilliant sphere three feet in diameter, sometimes not 

 developing to more than a third of that size, but always when it rises 

 to the height of a man's stature above ground, showing within its 

 glow two faces, to which gradually the bosses of two naked wrestlers, 

 struggling fiercely, attach themselves. It takes its way slowly and 

 harmlessly to the recesses of the hills, but resents, with superhuman 

 force, any attempt to interrupt its passage. Once a wrestler of un- 

 conquered fame waited at midnight for its coming, and sprang to 

 grasp it as it passed through the mists. He was hurled to a distance 

 of ten or twelve yards and barely escaped with his life. 



The fox is an animal particularly addicted to assuming a great 

 variety of shapes and disguises, often entering into and taking pos- 

 session of people for evil purposes, or otherwise imitating various 

 natural or artificial objects, thereby giving rise to great confusion 

 or even distress, as witness the phantom train on the Tokaido railway 

 some years since, which so terrified and confused an engineer as to 

 nearly cause a disaster. Among other disguises of this animal is that 

 of the so-called 'fox-flame,' which is assumed at night in dangerous 

 and solitary places. The initiated, however, may readily overcome 

 the spells of the ' fox-flame,' since all that is necessary is to join 

 hands so as to leave a diamond-shaped opening between the crossed 

 fingers. By blowing through this opening in the direction of the 

 light, at the same time repeating a Buddhist formula, it is possible 

 to extinguish the witch-fire at any distance. 



