Subject: Henry Duncan on The Ignis Fatuus
From: "Sean B. Palmer" <sean@...>
Date: 22 Mar 2007 11:58
I've just transcribed an article on the Ignis Fatuus or Will-o'-the-Wisp by Henry Duncan, in a work of his from 1847: http://inamidst.com/lights/wisp/duncan1847 - Henry Duncan, in "Sacred Philosophy of the Seasons" After a brief introduction, he provides an account taken from the Dumfries Courier about the turn of the century by a farmer who saw what Duncan characterises as an ignis fatuus, but is more correctly an ignis lambens or St. Elmo's Fire; basically a "flame" that adhered to the farmer's whip. He goes on to talk about the three famous wisp sightings of Boccari, Shaw, and Priestley, which are often recounted in any article on the ignis fatuus from the 19th century, but does so in a way which manages to boil them down to their essentials: Boccari's light was unaffected by the wind, seemed to drop sparks of fire, and got brighter in the rain. Shaw's light was variable in its shape, lasted more than an hour, and could cover acres. Priestley's lights (or Waltire's lights) played about the surface of a field, often suddenly springing up, illuminating the surroundings. Duncan then tries to theorise about what causes the lights. For such a pretentious writer (his philistinic denunciation of the farmer's style and turns of phrases such as "in which these qualities inhere" are awesome), he's remarkably uninformed; but at the same time, gives some observations that are rare amongst reporters of the time. For example, he starts off by saying that perhaps heat and light aren't as intertwingled as is commonly thought, and then after mumbling and handwaving on electricity and magnetism, gives some examples of light without heat, including "the beams of the moon". Then he gets to his actual theory, which is that some "phosphoric fluid" rises into the atmosphere, gets ignited, and somehow transmits sparks across its entire body. In other words, he believes that the air is replete with this fluid, and that it can carry some kind of spark about it, igniting only certain areas, thus explaining the ability of the light to flitter about, and their propensity for appearing in groups. Though crude, it's quite ingenious, and I'm not sure I've come across anybody else who tries to explain this particular quality of the lights in such a way. He then closes with a poem which, though he doesn't say so directly, is by the legal clerk, curate, poet, and philanthropist James Grahame. It's actually quite a nice little poem, capturing some of the essence of wisps compactly and prettily. Cheers, -- Sean B. Palmer http://inamidst.com/lights/