Note 781 — JUVENAL'S SATIRES. (continued 3)

Ignis. Grangæus interprets this of the meteoric fires seen in the Mediterranean, which, when seen single, were supposed to be fatal. Plin., ii., 37, "Graves cum solitarii venerunt mergentesque navigia, et si in carinæ ima deciderint, exurentes." These fires, when double, were hailed as a happy omen, as the stars of Castor and Pollux. "Fratres Helenæ lucida sidera," Hor., I., Od. iii., 2; cf. xii., 27. The French call it "Le feu St. Elme," said to be a corruption of "Helena." The Italian sailors call them "St. Peter and St. Nicholas." But these only appear at the close of a storm. Cf. Hor., ii., seq., and Blunt's Vestiges, p. 37.