by Dawn R. Cole

Created on: March 22, 2010   Last Updated: March 24, 2010

Corpse candles are mysterious, floating orbs of light that can be blue, white, or red in color.  They can appear indoors or outside, but tend to be more common in graveyards, bogs, and marshes.  The lights are said to be either omens of death, lost souls, or mischievous spirits.
 
During Medieval times, corpse candles were not feared, but welcomed.  Their appearance offered the dying person a chance to achieve a "good death" by giving them enough time to get their affairs in order and make peace with God.  Only those who did not pay attention to the corpse light's warning had something to fear.  Those people would experience a "bad death", and their souls would end up in Purgatory for eternity.

Centuries ago, in the most remote, rural areas of many countries, a dead person's body would have to be transported along a specific funeral path known as the "corpse road".  The route was used to take the deceased from their home, to the church, and to the cemetery.  Corpse lights were often seen traveling on the "corpse road", floating from a churchyard, to a cemetery, to someone's home, and back again.  Here is the first stanza of an untitled, anonymous poem that was written about the corpse lights:

"All under the stars, and beneath the green tree,
All over the sward, and along the cold lea,
A little blue flame a-fluttering came;
It came from the churchyard for you, or for me."

Over the years, people's attitudes about death changed.  Death became something that was feared and seeing a corpse candle was a very dangerous thing to the living.  Instead of being a positive sign to those who were about die, seeing the lights invoked terror.

People believed that the eerie lights appeared for a variety of reasons:

* An omen of impending death.  Larger lights were for men, medium lights for women, smaller lights denoted the loss of an infant, and multiple lights represented the number of people that were to about to die.

* As companions to the recently departed whose souls had not yet left the earthly plane.  Once the souls left the earth, the lights would be extinguished.

* Souls who were being used by the Devil to lure travelers astray. 

* The souls of stillborns or babies who died before being baptized.  Their souls would continue flitting between Heaven and Hell for eternity.

Sightings of corpse candles have been reported in countries all over the world and are known by a variety of other names that

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