Will-o-the-Wisp!

Will-o-the-Wisp is the name that I have given to the ragdolls that Darling Daughter and I make. I posted pictures of a few back months ago and wrote about how I came up with that name. There is a legend about Marsh Sprites called Will-o-the-Wisps. The legend tells of some not-so-nice sprites that would lure travelers off of a well beaten path into the boggy marsh and to a certain misfortune. The luring would be done with mysterious lights that would twinkle in the marsh. The twinkling lights now have been explained away as "swamp gas"bubbles that spontaneously combust causing flickering lights to been seen in marshes, mires and bogs. My dolls on the other hand, are sweet little sprites but still abide near the marsh!

Tonight, I saw the equivalent of Will-o-the-Wisps. It was late evening just before dark, when over the marsh I saw orbs of light. I was taken aback at first..not sure that I had seen anything other than an oily blotch on my glasses. Since I take my camera on every outing, I tried taking a picture of the ball of light. This was a bit harder to do than I anticipated..this little orb was bouncing all over the place! I snapped about a dozen pictures of whatever it was that was captivating my attention. I did notice that there were several of them..some bigger than the others but all just tiny bubbles of light. They would start down low near the marsh grass and they float..no..sort of bounce or glide upwards. After reaching about twenty feet above the marsh they would either disappear into the trees lining the edge of the Bayou or simply fall back to the marsh.

I watched for a while and still have not figured out what causes these phenomena. I noticed in the pictures that some are not round but have a sort of "two-winged" shape..perhaps they are little glowy bugs? If so..they appeared to be about four or five inches across and had sort of an iridescence about them..shiny..sort of glow-in-the-dark. Any ideas of what I am seeing or do we just mark it up as "Will-o-the-Wisps"!