Ignis Fatuus
A wavering luminous appearance frequently observed in meadows and marshy places, round which many popular superstions cluster. Its folk-names, Will o' the Wisp and Jack o' Lantern, suggest a country fellow bearing a lantern or straw torch (wisp). Formerly these lights were supposed to haunt desolate bogs and moorlands for the purpose of misleading travellers and drawing them to their death. Another superstition says that they are the spirits of those who have been drowned in the bogs, and yet another, that they are the souls of unbaptized infants. Science refers these ignes fatui to gaseous exhalations from the moist ground, or, more rarely, to night-flying insects.