From sean@... Fri Mar 23 10:18:42 2007 Return-Path: X-Sender: sean@... X-Apparently-To: Received: (qmail 48322 invoked from network); 23 Mar 2007 17:16:57 -0000 Received: from unknown ( by with QMQP; 23 Mar 2007 17:16:57 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO ( by with SMTP; 23 Mar 2007 17:16:57 -0000 Received: from [] by with NNFMP; 23 Mar 2007 17:16:35 -0000 Received: from [] by with NNFMP; 23 Mar 2007 17:16:31 -0000 Received: from [] by with NNFMP; 23 Mar 2007 17:16:31 -0000 Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2007 17:16:30 -0000 To: Message-ID: User-Agent: eGroups-EW/0.82 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Mailer: Yahoo Groups Message Poster X-Yahoo-Newman-Property: groups-compose X-Originating-IP: X-eGroups-Msg-Info: 1:6:0:0 X-Yahoo-Post-IP: From: "Sean B. Palmer" Subject: Chambers's Observations on Ignes Fatui X-Yahoo-Group-Post: member; u=264160903; y=4pbJj_4Gg608yX3rE-6qlSYdzgjnQrOvqrILtNxRV7Hk2B9l_WBu5A X-Yahoo-Profile: sean_b_palmer This transcription is of a talk given in front of the Linnaean Society in 1830, discussing the possibility that ignes fatui are caused by luminous insects: - Richard Chambers (1830), Observations on Ignes Fatui Though the entire piece frames the subject in entomological terms, the actual reports of wisps given are very objective and interesting. For example, the first is from the author's father, a Mr. Anthony Chambers, who used to live around Lincoln. He saw a "Jack-o'-lantern", as wisps were often called before the term came to be used for the hollowed out pumpkin with a candle in it, following him through "Bultham Wood". I've found out that that must be the Boultham Wood that's now basically just a suburb of Lincoln; so sadly the habitat is probably all but destroyed, though some woodland remains. This particular sighting gives credence to the younger Chambers's claims in that the light *avoided* a gate at the end of the path. Semi-intelligent behaviour is a characteristic of his other evidence too. Chambers quotes Derham's famous experience as a typical objection that the light is caused by insects, and doesn't pass much comment on it. He then quotes a friend of his called Thomas Stothard, who was a light near Blandford (Forum, I presume) on his return (to London?) from Plymouth, in June 1921. The coachman said it was a Will-with-the-wisp, and Stothard himself describes it as being something like "between flying and leaping" in its behaviour. Again, the alighting of the light on "the shrubs or high grass" seems to be evidence of its intelligent and therefore insect nature. Stothard thinks that what he saw was a mole-cricket, which intriguingly the map on Wikipedia doesn't show as belonging now to Britain so perhaps it became extinct here since the early 19th century: - Wikipedia on the Mole Cricket He then tells an intriguing story about a farmer from Tikleton in Cambridgeshire. The Ordnance Survey says "no such place" when I feed Tikleton in, and I haven't yet been able to work out what he's referring to. But the story nonetheless carries on from the mole-cricket conjecture: the farmer said that someone pursued a wisp, hit it, and it proved to be a mole-cricket, which he brought to the curate, the Rev. Dr. Sutton, who identified it. This story is from Kirby's Introduction to Entomology, which seems to have perpetuated the craze started by Willoughby et al. through the 19th century. Chambers then continues to quote another sighting by a Mr. Sheppard of a wisp between Stamford and Grantham (in Rutland and Lincolnshire respectively, about 20 miles apart), which exhibits wind-defying motion. Chambers had even gone to Lincolnshire himself, apparently in the area of Boston, to try to find some wisps, but without success according, due to one fisherman, to the draining of the fens. He concludes his sightings with another from a man called William Day (unless this was the man who was merely passing the report on), who saw a wisp in the region of Worcestershire in the spring of 1823. This is a great report, talking about a wisp that blew apart into "a dozen or twenty" fragments before recombining and flying off over a hedge and into the adjoining field before disappearing into the distance. Sadly, no more information is given about the precise location. The editor of the magazine, presumably Edward Charlesworth, adds a footnote saying that there's evidence against the insect theory, and to see a couple of journal entries for further information. All in all, then, this is another great but tantalising piece containing lots of sightings and some good descriptions of characteristics, but very little in the way of locations and the like. It seems that apart from the "Tikleton" story, Chambers doesn't really have any hard evidence beyond what he seems to be indicating is an intelligent behaviour on the part of the lights, though of course we could conjure up any of a number of explanations for this behaviour which are inanimate in nature. But again, as with all of these theories, there's probably an element of truth and enlightenment in there: there are bound to be misidentifications, and the Tikleton story, if it's true, is a very good example of the imagination running wild on the whole wisp front. We also learn a little about the cultural milieu that gives rise to these explanations, just as "UFOs" are the vogue in our technological age and "ghost rockets" were prevalent during the war, so we have luminous owls and insects on the mind of the less urban literati of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Cheers, -- Sean B. Palmer