{"id":59981,"date":"2021-10-25T05:54:31","date_gmt":"2021-10-25T09:54:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/world.edu\/?p=59981"},"modified":"2021-10-25T05:54:31","modified_gmt":"2021-10-25T09:54:31","slug":"peatland-folklore-lent-us-will-o-the-wisps-and-jack-o-lanterns-and-can-inspire-climate-action-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/world.edu\/peatland-folklore-lent-us-will-o-the-wisps-and-jack-o-lanterns-and-can-inspire-climate-action-today\/","title":{"rendered":"Peatland folklore lent us will-o-the-wisps and jack-o-lanterns, and can inspire climate action today"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\nIn northern European cultural and literary traditions, peatlands \u2014 an umbrella term for various types\u00a0of bogs<\/a>,\u00a0fens and<\/a>\u00a0moors<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 all have associations with\u00a0fear, danger and uncertainty<\/a>. Folklore associated with peatlands has also lent us some Halloween symbols,\u00a0like the jack-o\u2019-lantern<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And yet, fears or dangers associated with Halloween don\u2019t hold a candle to the clear and present planetary threat of climate change. Learning about and protecting peatlands matters for taking positive climate action today.<\/p>\n

Peatlands act as carbon sequestration units (or sinks) \u2014 where carbon dioxide (CO2) is captured from the atmosphere and stored over many millennia. In fact,\u00a0peatlands are the largest natural terrestrial carbon storage<\/a>\u00a0on the planet (about 25 per cent of all soil carbon<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0double the amount held in forests<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Peatlands have been central to how northern European folklore has explored fear, a sense of the uncanny and the supernatural for hundreds of years. Their persistence is also key to slowing down climate change.<\/p>\n

Landscapes of mystery and fear<\/strong><\/h4>\n

In my book,\u00a0Contentious Terrains: Boglands, Ireland, Postcolonial Gothic<\/a><\/em>, I examined how cultural and literary narratives about peatlands in Ireland often evoke gothic elements through the mysterious and macabre as a response to colonial histories. The gothic refers generally to modes,\u00a0themes and stylistic representations of horror or the uncanny across European cultural history dating back to the 18th century<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Northern European storytellers have often relied on peatland landscapes to capture a frightening or spooky mood or atmosphere, such as in English classic novels like\u00a0Emily Bront\u00eb\u2019s Wuthering Heights<\/em><\/a>\u00a0or\u00a0Arthur Conan Doyle\u2019s Hound of the Baskervilles<\/em><\/a>. Such tales drew on longer-standing oral and cultural traditions that looked to peatlands as liminal spaces, places that appealed to a sense of the uncanny and the supernatural.
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Ruins of the farmhouse that some believe inspired Emily Bronte\u2019s \u2018Wuthering Heights,\u2019 set in the West Yorkshire windswept moorlands. Both wet and dry moors are peatlands, but if wet, a moor is generally synonymous with a bog. (Shutterstock)<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n

Folkloric accounts<\/strong><\/h4>\n

A rich folklore involving fear and death, in addition to ghosts and hauntings, emerges from accounts of peatlands. According to Irish folklore, the\u00a0p\u00faca<\/em>\u00a0or \u201cpooka\u201d is a shape-shifter that uses the\u00a0mysterious terrain of bogs to either deceive<\/a>\u00a0or assist people.<\/p>\n

Often appearing in rural or marine environments, the pooka is a trickster figure capable of\u00a0morphing into various forms: black horses<\/a>, goats, rabbits and cats, as well as humans. In\u00a0The Origin and History of Irish Names and Places<\/a><\/em>, under the \u201cfairies, demons, goblins and ghosts\u201d section, Irish historian and etymologist P.W. Joyce describes the pooka as a contradictory mix of merriment and malignity.<\/p>\n

Folklore commonly referred to distant lights known to spontaneously appear on peatlands as will-o\u2019-the-wisps (or\u00a0ignis fatuus<\/em> \u2014 Latin for \u201cfoolish fire\u201d<\/a>) \u2014 a type of ghost also\u00a0known as \u201cbog sprites,\u201d \u201cwater sheeries,\u201d \u201cfairy lights\u201d and even the more familiar jack-o\u2019-lantern<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Science journalist Kit Chapman explains that a scientific theory for these lights exists, but is still debated. Some scientists maintain that in some peatland environments,\u00a0the highly flammable chemicals of phosphine and diphosphane that are produced from the fermentation process in these highly anaerobic marshy lands can spontaneously ignite with exposure<\/a>\u00a0to oxygen at various temperatures on the surface.<\/p>\n

Storytellers told of how flickering forms, often resembling candles or fire bursts, would sometimes help wayward travellers find their way. Or, according to other accounts, will-o\u2019-the-wisps sometimes led travellers\u00a0to an untimely death<\/a>. Wet peatlands (bogs) can be visually deceptive: what looks like solid ground can give way and claim a person by suffocation or drowning.<\/p>\n

\u2018Bog bodies\u2019<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Peatlands are also associated with the now-famous mummified \u201cbog bodies\u201d\u00a0found in various parts of northern Europe<\/a>.<\/p>\n

These bodies have been preserved for thousands of years, including fingerprints, nails, hair and facial features, all due to the\u00a0decay-defying, oxygen-deficient (anaerobic) environment<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Commentary about the environmental insights afforded by\u00a0studying and contemplating bog bodies<\/a>, and the\u00a0ethical issues inherent in excavating, displaying<\/a>\u00a0or writing about them, point to how peatlands continue to encourage deep reflection about our relationships with cultures and environmental history.
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Head of bog body known as \u2018Tollund Man.\u2019 Found in 1950 near Tollund, Silkebjorg, Denmark, and about 2,300 years old.
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The wonder of peatlands<\/strong><\/h4>\n

This year, Halloween falls on the first day of the\u00a026th United Nations Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26)<\/a>\u00a0in Glasgow, Scotland.<\/p>\n

This is a fitting location considering\u00a0the history of peatlands<\/a>\u00a0in the North Atlantic archipelago, but also in face of the\u00a0climate disaster<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The world has much to fear about the degradation of peatlands, much more than wandering spirits. Based upon the most recent\u00a0projections from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)<\/a>, we are in dire circumstances.<\/p>\n

In the past 10,000 years, peatlands absorbed\u00a0up to 1.2 trillion tonnes of carbon dioxide<\/a>, producing a significant amount of net cooling on the Earth. The bad news is that the sustained destruction of peatlands\u00a0accounts for five to 10 per cent of annual carbon emissions<\/a>\u00a0from humans.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, the removal or disturbance of peatlands accelerates climate change for two interconnected reasons: it reduces the land where carbon can be captured and stored, and it also releases stored carbon over several millennia back into the atmosphere, increasing carbon levels.<\/p>\n

Think of peatlands this Halloween<\/strong><\/h4>\n

This Halloween, rather than only being lured by jack-o\u2019-lanterns across neighbourhood streets, perhaps we can also consider peatlands and their impact on climate.<\/p>\n

The same\u00a0fear of danger<\/a>\u00a0and sense of awe associated with peatlands for thousands of years can be redirected in a contemporary context to increase climate education and awareness. Peatlands remain central to climate action around the world.<\/p>\n

Consider learning about the peatlands nearest to you this Halloween, such as those peatlands across Canada\u00a0that are part of traditional territories of many Indigenous Peoples<\/a>.
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