THE WILL-O'-THE-WISP. 281 



"Thus we see the old woman brought forward the testimony of her father 

 also, with respect to the traditional shady character of the Jack-o' -Lantern, or 

 Will-o'-the-Wisp, or Ignis fatuus. 



"You call the Jack-o'-Lantern he,^ I said. 'You talk as if you thought it 

 knew what it was about; and by luring you into danger it had an object in view, 

 and not a good one.' "Just so," said the old man. I said I was inclined to 

 agree with him. 



" On the man's assenting to the woman's assertion that 'when a Jack-o'- 

 Lantern gets you into the water, then he laughs,' I pressed the question, ' Do 

 you really mean to say that they are really heard to laugh — that they make the 

 noise of laughter?' 'Yes,' was the reply. 'But how,' I rejoined, 'can people 

 know that they laugh when those who are led by them get drowned, and do not 

 live to tell it ?' " 



It is curious that " Miror " speaks of this his own objection — fatal, as it ap- 

 pears to us — as "rather lame special pleading on my part." It must not be for- 

 gotten that the occurrence is said to have taken place at Purbeck. Now in the 

 counties of Dorset and Wilts the tendency to personification is very strong, and 

 the country people speak of many things as "he" which in the Metropolitan 

 District and the Northern Counties are always referred to as "• it." 



A very full and definite account of the appearance of an Ignis fatuus is to be 

 met with in a modern work^ reviewed in our current issue. Some passages of 



White's narrative we quote. The inhabitants of Itapua, a small town in the 

 /: Plata States, situate on the River Parana, were during the author's stay 

 /armed by " a mysterious light that appeared almost every night in the second 

 iplaza, situated on the high river banks, but where, nevertheless, the ground was 

 in some parts a temporary swamp, from the rains settled in the hollows. In this 

 plaza were posted the line soldiers' barracks,- and to the guard bivouacking round 

 their fire at night it first manifested itself. My friend Lieut. Morcillo, the officer 

 in command, soon got to hear of it, and, scenting trickery, issued notice that he 

 had given his soldiers orders to fire upon it whenever and wherever it became 

 visible. The soldiers, as they became more accustomed to the Ignis fatuus, be- 

 gan to style it the "Plazera." Singular to relate, no sooner did the light burst 

 forth than it was heralded throughout the town by a universal chorus of howls 

 from the mangy curs in Itapua. In order to elucidate the mystery Lieut. Mor- 

 cillo and myself visited the plaza for several nights in succession, accompanied 

 by three or four soldiers with loaded rifl.es and ourselves armed with revolvers. 

 The military were posted round the square, and we waited from ten o'clock till 

 twelve or one in an atmosphere bathed in the brilliancy of a full moon. Only 

 twice was it seen by me, but then very distinctly ; the first time some little dis- 

 tance off, but the second quite close. On the first occasion the light started up 

 from the ground with the brightness and speed of a rocket, and then again de- 

 scended to the earth with equal velocity but less splendor : on the second we 



3 Cameos from the Silver Land, by E. W. White, F. Z. S. London : Van Voorst, Vol. ii., p. 447. 



