The Cozy Files: Lanterns in the Fog

The mountains here in Appalachia have turned into a cobbler crust of color russet, gold, and ember-orange patch-worked across the slopes like a homespun quilt. The air smells faintly of wood smoke and damp earth. I have always loved this time of year. There is something in it that feels like homecoming as if the land itself exhales after the heat of summer and settles into a deep, knowing rest.

Yet with autumn’s beauty comes the early dark. Long before electricity, this season meant a growing, almost sentient night. To the ancients, twilight was not merely the end of the day, it was a threshold. Fires were kindled, shutters were drawn, and people whispered stories to keep the shadows at bay. In our world of eternal brightness — headlights, phones, and porch bulbs we forget what it means to live on the edge of the dark. But the people of old had their own lights to guide them: the mysterious Will-o’-the-Wisp, the Hinky Punk, and the Friar’s Lantern. The Cozy Files: Lanterns in the Fog.

 Kindness in the Dark

Between the worlds, light becomes a symbol of both guidance and uncertainty. Folklore tells us these wandering flames could be cruel tricksters, leading travelers into bogs and brambles. But perhaps that is only one side of the story. Maybe — just maybe — some lights meant to lead wanderers’ home by the quickest path, misunderstood in their eagerness to help. After all, fear has a way of distorting kindness into menace.

These floating flames are not confined to one culture. The Germans called them Irrlicht (“wandering light”), the French knew them as Feux Follets, and in Thailand, the mysterious Naga Fireballs rise from the Mekong River each autumn. Here in the United States, we whisper about the Brown Mountain Lights of North Carolina and the Paulding Light in Michigan. Even in Arabic folklore, the Abu Fanous “Father of the Lantern” glimmers in lonely deserts.

Across continents and centuries, humans have looked out into the darkness and seen tiny, flickering lights spirits, fairies, ancestors, or simple phenomena of gas and swamp. Whatever their nature, they have always seemed to beckon, to dance, to remind us that something out there is still alive in the unseen.

Light in the Meadow

One late summer evening, I visited a well-known ghost-hunting site. The main trail was crowded with eager seekers, so my friends and I wandered into a quiet meadow instead. Fireflies were long gone for the season, and yet there were flickering lights: tiny blue lights, weaving through the tall grasses.

We stood in silence, half in awe, half in disbelief. Then, faintly, our recorder picked up the sound of laughter light, joyful, utterly human, and not. Before long, that laughter infected us. We began skipping through the field like children, blue sparks seeming to burst from our heels as we moved. There was no fear, no malice, only delight. The lights did not lure us away; they invited us to play.

That night remains one of the happiest I have ever spent under the open sky. The will-o’-the-wisps if that is what they were did not haunt us. They reminded us of wonders.

A Time to Remember

As autumn deepens and the nights stretch long, I often think of those little lights — and of the people who once trusted them to guide their way. The folklore of the will-o’-the-wisp is more than a ghost story; it is a parable about hope in uncertainty. In every flicker, every candle, every porch light left burning for someone’s return, there is a whisper of that same faith.

So, here is a small ritual for you, dear reader:

Tonight, light a candle. Do it for the lost, the wandering, and the forgotten human or otherwise.Place it in your window or by your bedside, and remember even the faintest light can pierce the deepest fog.