St. Elmo's Fire

St. Elmo's fire is a plasma (i.e. a hot, ionized gas) that forms arounds the tips of raised, pointed conductors during thunderstorms. It is known as a corona discharge or point discharge to physicists. The few people that have had the privilege of viewing an actual St. Elmo's fire have given various descriptions. It has been seen with different physical characteristics depending on the conditions of the viewing. It could be blue to bluish-white, silent to emitting a hissing sound, and ghostly to solid. Some people belive that the Hindenburg was ignited by St. Elmo's fire in 1937, however this theory has yet to be proven.

St. Elmo's fire occurs during thunderstorms - generally after the most severe part of the storm has passed - when the air reaches a very high voltage. These conditions are necessary to accumulate a charge large enough to create the phenomenon. It is always found attached to a grounded conductor with a sharp point; the most common are masts of sailing ships, church steeples, airplane wings or propellers, or even horns of cattle. The non-attached version of St. Elmo's fire is known as Ball Lightning.

In Shakespeare's The Tempest, Ariel the sprite, speaks of fooling with unlucky sailors while posing as the supposed omen:

I boarded the Kings' ship; now in the beak,
Now in the waist, the deck, in every cabin,
I flamed amazement; sometime I'd divide
And burn in many places; on the topmast
The yards and bowsprit, would I flame distinctly
Then meet and join.

In Melville's Moby Dick, the fisherman, Ishmael, observes:

"All the yardarms were tipped with a pallid fire, and touched at each tri-potential lightning rod with three tapering white flames, each of the three tall masts was silently burning in that sulphurous air, like gigantic wax tapers before an altar...in all my voyagings seldom have I heard a common oath when God's burning finger has been laid on the ship..."

Longfellow wrote in The Golden Legend:

Last night I saw St. Elmo's stars
With their glittering lanterns all at play.
On the tops of masts and the tips of spars.
And knew we should have foul weather today.

Longfellow also referred to St. Elmo's fire in The Challenge of Thor:

The light thou beholdest, streams through the Heaven,
In flashes of crimson, is but my red beard.
Blown by the night wind, afrighting the nations.