AND AMERICAN RURAL SPORTS. 



11 



evening, had to cross a strip of marsh. As he approached 

 the causeway, he noticed a light towards the opposite end, 

 which he supposed to be a lantern in the hand of some 

 person whom he was about to meet. It proved, however, 

 to be a solitary flame, a few inches above the marsh, at 

 the distance of a few feet from the edge of the causeway. 

 He stopped some time to look at it; and was strongly 

 tempted, notwithstanding the miriness of the place, to get 

 nearer to it, for the purpose of closer examination. It was 

 evidently a vapour, [phosphuretted hydrogen ?] issuing 

 from the mud, and becoming ignited, or at least luminous, 

 in contact with the air. It exhibited a flickering appear- 

 ance, like that of a candle expiring in its socket; alter- 

 nately burning with a large flame and then sinking to a 

 small taper; and occasionally, for a moment, becoming 

 quite extinct. It constantly appeared over the same spot. 



With the phenomena exhibited in this instance, I have 

 been accustomed to compare those exhibited in other in- 

 stances, whether observed by myself or others; and gene- 

 rally, making due allowance for the illusion of the senses 

 and the credulity of the imagination in a dark and misty 

 night, (for it is on such nights that they usually appear,) 

 I have found these phenomena sufficient for the explanation 

 of all the fantastic tricks that are reported of these phan- 

 toms. 



They are supposed to be endowed with locomotive 

 power. They appear to recede from the spectator, or to 

 advance towards him. But this may be explained with- 

 out locomotion — by their variation in respect to quantity 

 of flame. As the light dwindles away, it will seem to 

 move from you, and with a velocity proportioned to the 

 rapidity of its diminution. Again, as it grows larger, it 

 will appear to approach you. If it expires, by several 

 flickerings or flashes, it will seem to skip from you, and 

 when it re-appears you will easily imagine that it has as- 

 sumed a new position. This reasoning accounts for their 

 apparent motion, either to or from the spectator; and I 

 never could ascertain that they moved in any other direc- 

 tion, that is, in a line oblique or perpendicular to that in 

 which they first appeared. In one instance, indeed, I 

 thought this was the fact, and what struck me as more sin- 

 gular, the light appeared to move, with great rapidity, di- 

 rectly against a very strong wind. But after looking some 

 time, I reflected that I had not changed the direction of 

 my eye at all, whereas if the apparent motion had been 

 real, I ought to have turned half round. The deception 

 was occasioned by the motion of the wind itself — as a 

 stake standing in a rapid stream will appear to move 

 against the current. 



It is a common notion that the ignis fatuus cannot be 

 approached, but will move off as rapidly as you advance. 



This characteristic is mentioned in the Edinburgh Ency- 

 clopaedia. It is doubtless a mistake. Persons attempting 

 to approach them, have been deceived perhaps as to their 

 distance, and finding them farther off than they imagined, 

 have proceeded a little way and given over, under the 

 impression that pursuit was vain. An acquaintance of 

 mine, a plain man, told me he actually stole up close 

 to one, and caught it in his hat, as he thought; — "and 

 what was it?" I asked. "It was'nt nothin." On 

 looking into his hat for the " shining jelly," it had 

 wholly disappeared. His motion had dissipated the 

 vapour, or perhaps his foot had closed the orifice from 

 which it issued. To this instance another may be added. 

 A young man and woman, walking home from an evening 

 visit, approached a light, which they took for a lantern 

 carried by some neighbour, but which on actually passing 

 it, they found to be borne by no visible being; and taking 

 themselves to flight, burst into the nearest house with such 

 precipitation as to overturn the furniture, and impart no 

 small share of their fright to the family. 



The circumstance that these lights usually appear over 

 marshy grounds, explains another popular notion respect- 

 ing them; namely, that they possess the power of beguil- 

 ing persons into swamps and fens. To this superstition 

 Parnell alludes in his Fairy Tale, in which he makes 

 Will-o'the-wisp one of his dancing fairies; 



"Then Will who hears the wispy fire, 

 To trail the swains among the mire," &c. 



In a misty night, they are easily mistaken for the light of 

 a neighbouring house, and the deceived traveller, directing 

 his course towards it, meets with fences, ditches, and other 

 obstacles, and by perseverance, lands at length, quite be- 

 wildered, in the swamp itself. By this time, he perceives 

 that the false lamp is only a mischievous jack-a-lantern. 

 An adventure of this kind I remember to have occurred 

 in my own neighbourhood. A man left his neighbour's 

 house late in the evening, and at day-light had not reached 

 his own, a quarter of a mile distant; at which his family 

 being concerned, a number of persons went out to search 

 for him. We found him near a swamp, with soiled 

 clothes and a thoughtful countenance, reclining by a fence. 

 The account he gave was, that he had been led into the 

 swamp by a jack-a-lantern. His story was no doubt true, 

 and yet had little of the marvellous in it. The night being 

 dark, and the man's senses a little disordered withal, by a 

 glass too much of his neighbour's cherry, on approaching 

 his house, he saw a light, and not suspecting that it was 

 not upon his own mantel, made towards it. A bush or a 

 bog, might have led to the same place, if he had happened 

 to take it for his chimney-top. — lb. 



