Research source

In burial-grounds, especially where the bodies of those slain in battle are interred, it is said that phantom…

Date of account: Second edition published 1896
Source: The Popular Religion and Folk-Lore of Northern India, Vol. 2 (of 2)
Reference: The Popular Religion and Folk-Lore of Northern India, Vol. 2 (of 2) · selected passage 103
Rights: public_domain
Language: English
Record updated: 2026-08-25

Record summary

In burial-grounds, especially where the bodies of those slain in battle are interred, it is said that phantom armies appear in the night

Published source text

Read the available text below. Archive transcriptions may contain OCR errors; later context is labelled separately. A recorded claim is not a finding that it happened.

Source passage

Source text · mention only

In burial-grounds, especially where the bodies of those slain in battle are interred, it is said that phantom armies appear in the night. Tents are pitched, the horses are tethered, and lovely girls dance before the heroes and the Jinn who are in their train. Sometimes some foolish mortal is attracted by the spectacle, and he suffers for his foolhardiness by loss of life or reason. Sometimes these ignes fatui mislead the traveller at night, as Robin Goodfellow "misleads night wanderers, laughing at their harm," or the Cornish piskies, who show a light and entice people into bogs. [532] There appears to be in Northern India no trace of the idea which so widely appears in Europe, that such lights are the souls of unbaptized children.

Historical context

Contextual commentary · mention only

This material belongs to a folklore tradition. Story type, collector, community, transmission and literary editing matter when comparing it with other sources.

Modern context

Contextual commentary · mention only

Lattice compares motifs and reported features without assuming that a traditional being is a biological species or that similar stories document one external cause.

Investigate related details with Anomaly Graph’s account-based search, or read how matching and provenance work.