Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 5, 1894.djvu/303

 Rh Now, luminous insects would certainly not be abroad in winter. Those tricky habits of misleading belated travellers ascribed to English sprites, do not enter into popular belief in the East.

A strange kind of ghostly lights, on an extensive scale, is sometimes to be seen in the Mysore province of the Madras Presidency. The great hill-fortress of Nandi-drûg rises some 1,500 feet above the plain; the fort on the top includes many buildings and commands wide prospects. It is thirty miles from the large military cantonment of Bangalore, and much resorted to. From the top the remarkable exhibition known as "the Nandidrûg lights" is now and then seen. Not having witnessed it myself I will copy an account that appeared in a Madras newspaper. The correspondent writes, that being on a visit to the fort, and looking at night from his window, which commanded a wide view over the country below, he was amazed at seeing the whole expanse for miles one blaze of light, the appearance being as of a vast city lighted by gas—hundreds and thousands of lights extending for miles, dancing and glittering in all directions—a weird yet beautiful sight. On asking what was the meaning of it, he was told "it was the bodies of all those who were killed in battle at Nandi; they all come up at this time with lights in their hands." Such was the native belief. I do not know whether any explanation has been offered of the phenomenon, or how often it occurs. In Norwegian folk-lore the little islands off the coast inhabited by the Dwarfs, were, on festival occasions, lit up with countless blue lights, that moved and skipped about without ceasing, borne by the little underground people; and the grave-mounds of heroes emitted lambent flames that guarded the dead and treasure buried with them. Five years ago, when in Brittany and looking over the marvellous array of huge stones at Carnac, I tried to elicit from a boy who guided us any popular beliefs regarding them. It was not easy to understand him, and I could only gather that on certain nights a flame was seen