Monday, October 8, 2018

Scary Stories for a Dark Season

Grimms' Saga No. 277: The Advent Flibbertigibbet


On the mountain road to Haenlein, but also in the area around Lorach, people call the Ignis fatuous (or phosphorescent lights that can be seen there), flibbertigibbets.  Purportedly they only appear during advent and a funny rhyme has been composed about them:

“Flibbertigibbet, ho, ho,
Burn like straw, oh, oh,
Strike me like lightening if you will!
Flibbertigibbet wisp-o-will!”


More than thirty years ago a young girl saw a flibbertigibbet in the evening and recited the old rhyme But the flibbertigibbet ran after the girl pursuing her into the house of her parents.  It followed quick on her heels and entered the room at the very same time she did.  It struck all the people assembled there with its fiery wings so that from that time forth her family was both dumb and blind.