Will-o'-the-Wisp

The will-o'-the-wisp is the ghostly, flickering light seen drifting over bogs, marshes and fens at night — a pale flame that seems to beckon the traveller onward, then recedes, luring the unwary off the safe path and into the mire. Across Britain and Ireland it goes by many names: Jack-o'-Lantern, the Hinky Punk of Dartmoor and Somerset, the Lantern Man of the East Anglian fens, the Spunkie in Scotland. Folk belief held the lights to be mischievous spirits, the souls of the dead barred from both heaven and hell, or fairies carrying lanterns to mislead mortals.

Science later explained the phenomenon as the glow of marsh gases — methane and phosphine rising from rotting vegetation and igniting — but the folklore long predates and outlives the chemistry. In the Fens the Lantern Man was especially feared: it was said to chase anyone who whistled, and the safest course was to throw oneself flat and hold one's breath until it passed. The will-o'-the-wisp endures as one of the most poetic and widespread of British folk beliefs — the very image of a false and deadly guiding light.