Volcanic Fire; Will-o’-the-Wisp.
Fire of a volcanic nature is, as might be expected, regarded with veneration. Such is the fire which in some places in Kashmîr rises out of the ground.148
The meteoric light or Shahâba is also much respected. In Hoshangâbâd there is a local godling, known as Khapra Bâba, who lives on the edge of a tank, and is said to appear in the darkness with a procession of lights.149 In Rohilkhand and the western districts of Oudh, one often hears of the Shahâba. In burial-grounds, especially where the bodies of those slain in battle are interred, it is said that phantom armies appear in the night. Tents are pitched, the horses are tethered, and lovely girls dance before the heroes and the Jinn who are in their train. Sometimes some foolish mortal is attracted by the spectacle, and he suffers for his foolhardiness by loss of life or reason. Sometimes these ignes fatui mislead the traveller at night, as Robin Goodfellow “misleads night wanderers, laughing at their harm,” or the Cornish piskies, who show a light and entice people into bogs.150 There appears to be in Northern India no trace of the idea which so widely appears in Europe, that such lights are the souls of unbaptized children.151