"Marsh Lights" Takapau District
From Trans. and Proceedings of the NZ Institute
On Marsh-lights by R. Coupland HARDING Read before 
the Wellington Philosophical Society 4th August, 1897


On the morning of the 14th February last, between 3 and 4
o'clock, I found myself on the Ruataniwha Plains, several
miles from Takapau. I had been walking for some hours, during
one of the darkest nights I have ever known, and in steady rain.

I had come through the Seventy-mile Bush from Dannevirke on one
of the finest highways in New Zealand, but found quite a
different state of things on the plain. The road was badly cut
up by recent rains, great stones were strewn about, and it was
more like a ravine than a roadway. In daylight there would have
been no difficulty; in the dense darkness I found it unsafe to
proceed. In fact, beginning to doubt whether I was on the
right track, and fearing to go astray in the labryinth of roads
on the wide plain, I retraced my steps nearly a mile,
remembering that I had not long before passed a gate, beyond
which I had seen dimly a house, with lights twinkling from the
windows. There, at any rate, when daylight came, I might make
inquiry. 

By keeping near to the fence I found a foot-track in the grass, 
on which I could safely walk. I saw nothing either of gate or 
house, but soon became aware of two lights, apparently about a 
hundred yards away, beyond the fence. They did not seem quite 
steady, or I would have taken them for the lights I had 
previously seen. They were at about the level of my eyes, and 
remained steady when I stood still. Thinking there might be some 
illusion, I raised my glasses, which had become blurred with 
raindrops, but the lights remained. As I moved on they kept pace 
with me, and I realised what they were. 

I can scarcely account for the feeling of aversion with which 
they inspired me - insignificant gas-bubbles as they were. I 
found myself watching them instead of looking to my feet, and at
length, being tired, I stood still. Attracted by the light on
the ground, I looked down, and saw one of these horrible little
bubbles disengaging itself from the sodden grass close to my
feet, probably forced out of the soil by my weight. I had thus
the opportunity of closely examining it.

It was of a well-defined form, apparently cylindrical, rounded
at the ends, just like the bubble in the glass tube of a spirit
level, only somewhat curved in shape, and about the size of a
small bean.

It shone with a lambent yellowish flame, brighter and more
concentrated than the two floating beside me. It appeared to
cling to the grass, but worked its way out slowly and steadily,
with a wriggle almost like that of a living creature.

I suppose I watched it for ten or fifteen seconds before it
became free, when it rose so suddenly that the sight could not
follow it. Looking up, I now saw three of my unwelcome
companions instead of two - just like three candles or dim
lamps in the distance.

This effect of distance must surely have been an illusion;
really I think they could not have been many inches away; but
the bubble was now undefined in form, and proportionately
fainter than when it escaped from the earth.

I suspect that there must have been something in the condition
of these gas-bubbles - perhaps their electrical state - that
kept them self-contained, and prevented their mingling with the
air. I went on, still accompanied by my familiars, till I came
to a gate, but not the one I was seeking. I paused - so did
they.

I went through - they went before instead of keeping at my side.
Soon I found myself of slippery clay, with a suspicious gleam
of water ahead, the three lights still moving forward. I
turned by back on them, returned to the road, and went on, when
I found them at my side as before; but thereafter I paid little
attention to them.

Coming to the end of the fence, I knew I must have passed the
house. I decided to wait, and did wait, for dawn - for a long
hour. When I stopped I looked for my attendants, and they were
not to be seen. They must have been visible quite a quarter of
an hour, and have accompanied me nearly a mile. Their behaviour
was exactly such as is described by poets and storytellers in
literature familiar to us all.

What was new to me, and unlike anything I have read or heard of,
was the new born will-of-the-wisp emerging from the ground. I
should add that this did not occur in swamp or bog-land, but on
the margin of an ordinary grass paddock, on a plain consisting
of shingle covered with no great depth of earth, and that the
moisture of the soil was exceptional, owing to recent heavy 
rains. Kirby and Spence's theory of luminous insects would not
apply here.

What I saw were luminous gas-bubbles, presumably from decaying
organic matter; the light, I infer, resulted from slow 
combustion, necessarily at a low temperature, as the gas, which
would not have filled a thimble, burned steadily for at least a
quarter of an hour....

The most puzzling feature of the will-of-the-wisp, so general as
to have become typical, and which I had full opportunity of
verifying, is its habit of closely accompanying or preceding a
traveller while maintaining the illusion of being at a
considerable distance. On this occasion, though the air was not 
calm, there was very little wind.