Foxfire

The foxfire,—as the country people call it,—glowed hideously from the cold and matted bosom of the marsh; and, far from us, in the depths of darkness, the screech-owl sat upon his perch, brooding over the slimy pool, and whooping out a dismal curfew, that fell upon the ear like the cries of a tortured ghost.

Perhaps you've seen a foxfire in the woods. Well, in the dark, it looks like a live, burning coal; but when you go to it, and take it up, it's only a piece of rotten wood.

[Nathaniel] Hawthorne in one of his books records a remarkable personal encounter with this weird fox-fire, and one which cost him dearly. He was on a journey by canal-boat, which had stopped en route for a brief period at midnight. During the interval he had stepped ashore, and was decoyed into a neighboring wood by the bright glow, which proved to be a fallen tree ablaze with phosphorescence. In his surprise and interest he lost all account of time, and thus missed his boat, [...] Almost any damp woods, especially after a rain, is likely to disclose its fox-fire, but it occasionally appears under circumstances where we little expect it.

People calls this "spunk," but it's foxfire. You see this hole in it? You see where I sawed it in two with the chain saw? See, this grows in hollow trees in a maple or a oak. No, it ain't mushroom; it's just really foxfire.

The rain stopped falling. They passed, leaving a trail of foxfire shuffled up out of the wet leaves like stars plowed in a ship's wake.

Curiously enough, there were fluorescent displays underground that could be enjoyed without benefit of an ultraviolet lamp. One of these was fox fire, the spectral glow given off by fungi on decaying timber. In the damp darkness of the mine, pine planks 3 inches thick could become feather light and crumbly in a year.

On the inside is fixed a Barometer, by which he can tell the depth he is under water; a Compass, by which he knows the course he steers. In the barometer and on the needles of the compass is fixed fox-fire, i.e. wood that gives light in the dark.

The navigator steered by a rudder, the tiller of which was passed through the back of the machine at a water joint, and in one side was fixed a small pocket compass, with two pieces of shining wood, (sometimes called foxfire,) crossed upon its north point, and a single piece upon the last point. In the night, when no light entered through the head, this compass thus lighted, was all that served to guide the helmsman in his course.