[f. CORPSE sb.]
† 1. ‘A thick candle used formerly at lake-wakes’ (Halliwell). Obs.
2. A lambent flame seen in a churchyard or over a grave, and superstitiously believed to appear as an omen of death, or to indicate the route of a coming funeral.
1694. Burthogge, Reason, 201. What will … [a] meer Somatist say to the Corps-Candles, or Dead Mens Lights, in Wales?
1696. Aubrey, Misc., 231. Those fiery apparitions (Corps Candles) which do as it were mark out the way for corpses to their κοιμητηριον and sometimes before the parties themselves fall sick.
1825–7. Hone, Every-day Bk., II. 1019. The exhalations in churchyards, called corpse candles, denoted coming funerals.
1876. Tennyson, Harold, III. i. Corpse-candles gliding over nameless graves.
