The Norfolk name for ignis fatuus. It is to be found in Mrs Balfour's 'The Dead Moon'.

[Motif: F491]

An unusual story to find in English folk tradition, for it is a mythological story, though in no way an origin myth. It was collected in the Lincolnshire Fens by Mrs Balfour, and published in 'Legends of the Cars' (Folk-Lore, Vol.II).

The personified Moon is the heroine of the story. She heard of black doings on the Fens, with the witches and bogles and the dead folk and creeping horrors and Will o' the Wykes leading travellers out of the way, and one moonlight night she wrapped herself in a black cloak and went to see. As she passed lightly over the Fens a stone turned under her feet and a willow snag twisted round her wrists and drew her down into the bog. All the evil spirits of the Fens came round her and buried her under a great stone, setting a Will o' the Wykes to guard her, and for more than a month no moon shone and the creeping horrors gained in strength until the Fenmen began to fear that they would invade their own hearths. At length, by the advice of a wise woman, the Fenmen set out to look for the buried Moon in dead silence, and in silence said the charms that freed her. They lifted the great stone and she rose up into the heavens and drove the black spirits away.