The Missing Fairies of Norfolk Part 3
The Disappearance of the Will O’the Wisp
A creeping fog clings to the secret pathways of a waterlogged marsh on a still and moonless night. The damp, heavy air carries the scent of plants and creatures who claim this landscape as home; earth, salt, vegetation, decay. Shallow water ebbs and trickles between the low lying samphire and sea lavender. In the distance a flicker, a plume of blue-yellow manifests, then another. Playfully they perform an eerie dance, fluttering on a non-existent breeze. A whistle pierces the silence, the cognisant flames pause. A poacher trudges slowly along a hidden, winding footway baring a heavy net of pilfered shellfish. In his weariness he forgets the warning tales of his father and grandfather, he whistles for the dog lingering behind him. The dog, stiff with alert, gazes at the waltz of phosphorescent blue. In a flash the Will O’the Wisp are upon him, his eyes bulge in disbelief, primordial instinct takes over (or perhaps his ancestors whisper in his ear) he drops to the ground. The rank, mineral rich mud fills his mouth and nostrils. He holds his breath, bounty and dog forgotten. Furious, the thwarted fire rushes over and past, unable to pursue its prey.
Will O’the Wisp, Jack O’Lantern, The Lantern Man - all refer to mysterious lights, often witnessed in years gone by over bogs and marshes. Folk tales declare them fairies, boggarts and bogles, scientists attribute them to Ignis Fatuus (Fools Fire) - a spontaneous combustion of swamp gas. But where has it gone? The phenomena has not been witnessed for nearly a century, there are no photographs or recordings available to examine. What happened to the Will O’the Wisp?
A small number of scientific papers can be found about the subject (The Extinction of Ignis Fatuus - Antonio C. Pavãoa, Gerson S. Paivaa and Cristiano C. Bast) They speculate on the natural causes of the historic phenomena: “ignis fatuus is a flame that glows without heat through a chemiluminescence process”. While mulling this subject over with my scientist husband the question of ignition came up, even if the occurrence is due to slow combustion of methane, how on earth does it light itself? The writers of the paper previously referred to suggest ignition was not spontaneous but due to the widespread use of burning torches as a source for night time illumination. To me this seems far fetched, surely not every person to have witnessed the ‘fairy lights’ over the centuries was carrying a burning torch! My mind wanders to the supernatural.
There are many recorded sightings of Will O’the Wisp from all around the world (with different names of course). As this post is one of my series ‘The Missing Fairies of Norfolk’ I have looked for accounts within East Anglia. The following sighting is from Ray Loveday’s ‘Hikey Sprites, The Twilight of a Norfolk Tradition’ and was related to him in August 2009 by a resident of Great Hospital, Bishopgate, Norwich. I hazard a guess that the informant was in their 80’s or 90’s at the time which would date the sighting to the 1920’s-30’s:
“We lived in Postwick, my dad worked at Grange Farm. Every Sunday evening the family, my parents, my sisters and myself attended the 6:30 evensong service at Postwick church, it was expected of us. When evensong ended, at about 7:30, mum went home with the youngest children to put them to bed. Dad and I walked down the loke to the marsh. It was getting dark, the marsh was covered with a blanket of mist on the top of which flickered and danced amazing little flames, blue, tinged at the top with yellow. I held my dad’s hand awe-struck, ‘they are fairies,’ he said. We walked home in silence, my mind full of wonder - I had seen fairies! From that day to this my belief in fairies was never in doubt.”
No mention of a a flaming torch or even gas lamp…
The lights are not always reported as stationery either, particularly when the name given is Jack O’Lantern or Lantern Man. Here is another Norfolk sighting, recorded in 1900 in Volume One of the Eastern Counties Magazine:
“There’s no saying what that will du to you, if that light on you! There was a young fellow coming home one evening and he see the Lantern Man coming for him and he run; and that run and he run again; and that run again! Now there was a silly old man lived down there who didn’t believe in none o’them things and this young fellow he run to his house and say, ‘O Giles, for Heaven’s sake, let me in - the Lantern Man’s coming!’ And old Giles he say, ‘You silly fool, there ain’t no such thing as a Lantern Man.’ But when he see the Lantern Man coming for him, Giles let the young fellow in, and that come for them two, till that was the beginner of a pint pot!
And old Giles, he thought he would play a trick on the Lantern Man so he got a candle and held that out right high; and the Lantern Man, he come right low and the Lantern Man he come up above it. And then he held out right steady, and the Lantern Man he come for that and he burst it all to pieces.
But they du say, if the Lantern Man light upon you, the best thing is to throw yourself flat on your face and hold your breath.”
A candle is mentioned in the above recollection, yes, but only at the end of the tale when the chased man reaches his acquaintances house. It sounds as if the light had been following him for a while. Surely this cannot be attributed to marsh gas! Mayhap a malific bogle was on the prowl.
And here is one last account; this time from a neighbouring county of Norfolk, Lincolnshire. Recounted by Ethel H. Ruskin for the article ‘Will O’the Wisp’ (1938) in Folklore Magazine, 49:1
“It looked like a bicycle lamp and was about the same distance from the ground and the same colour. A.B.’s daughter has seen it often between eight and ten o’clock at night when she has been coming home, so also has her son…One of our policemen was at the cross roads late one night, and saw a bicycle light coming up Atterby Lane. Though it was time to go off his beat he thought that he would stay and see who it was; so he waited until the light got level with him - and then there was nothing! This light does not “dance,” it moves in a steady way, three feet or so from the ground. Nowadays there is so much more traffic down Old Leys Lane that it would not be so noticeable.”
Again, no mention of marsh or open flame. It would seem there are two types of phenomena under the heading of Will O’the Wisp. The blue-yellow flame seen on marshes, airily explained away as self igniting methane and the floating, travelling type that looks like a bicycle lamp or candle flame - not so easy to dismiss as marsh gas. Are they one and the same? It is beyond the scope of this post to come to a definitive answer but I think it rash to dismiss them as a purely mundane phenomena.
And there is still the question of why it is not seen any longer? In ‘The Extinction of Ignis Fatuus’ this is addressed: “Considering how far we have come in our capacity to observe and record natural phenomena, this disappearance constitutes a mystery.” The writers of the paper posit the theory that “The abandonment of fire in favor of night lighting may hold the secret to this mystery of ignis fatuus’s extinction.” However, I feel this does not hold up to thorough examination, yes the argument can be made that the management and cultivation of land has led to les gas deposits and that flaming torches are no longer carried at night in heavily populated countries such as the UK but surely this is not the case all over the planet. Not all bogs and marshes have had human intervention, not all humans have given up the use of open flames at night. When I began researching this article I fully expected that a quick internet search would produce hundreds of photos and videos of blue flames on marshes but there was not one genuine picture! The only images I could find were the illustrations I have included. In my first “Missing Fairies of Norfolk” post I boldly claimed that it was not the fairies who had disappeared but the fairy-lore, however perhaps in this case it is the other way around. I find it very strange indeed that the phenomenon has never been captured on film. Which leads me to wonder whether dear old Jack of the Lantern decided it was time to hang up his torch…
Do you know where the Will O’the Wisp have gone?
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@Gnosis Infinita We must keep the Flame Burning
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