With the obsolescence of the candle as an everyday object, ‘candle-snatcher’ has lately dropped from usage. Essentially, it is a lost spirit, or revenant, suspended between this world and the next, although there are numerous accounts of faerie sprites pretending to be revenants in order to make mischief, such as Peggy Pickwick whose theft of a candle is blamed for the Great Fire of Lunden.

The Catholic Church long maintained that the primary cause of suspension of the human spirit is a failure to baptise children, citing the childlike behaviour of Candlesnatchers as proof; however, this is contradicted by the works of Pliny the Elder and Aristotle which describe similar phenomena long before the advent of Christianity. Today, most authorities agree the cause of spiritual ‘suspension’ remains unknown.

Although uncanny, candlesnatchers are harmless and are usually discouraged with an unkind word or, on the rare occasion they prove persistent, with a show of iron or steel whose magnetic properties are anathema to all forms of magick. The majority are ephemeral, although folklore suggests those with a permanent home near water can survive for many decades, albeit a number of these may be the elemental spirits which habitually frequent watercourses. Despite this partiality for water, candlesnatchers are, like all magickal phenomena, unable to cross running water owing to the etheric field created by the current.

Much of this is necessary to understand the candlesnatcher’s purpose in MacGregor’s narrative. The most obvious is it immediately introduces the supernatural, for, as MacGregor informed us, “The chief concern of this novel is magick.”

The less obvious purpose is to illustrate an aspect of Captain Wolfe’s character. A candlesnatcher is an interstitial phenomenon and trapped in a permanent state of unbelonging, as is Captain Wolfe whose clearsight prevents him being the son his father wished and the heroic officer he wishes to be. In essence, Captain Wolfe’s reaction to the candlesnatcher mirrors the loathing in which he holds himself.