Elmo's Fire, St., a popular name for the display of electric fire which sometimes plays about the masts of ships, steeples, &c., accompanied at times with a hissing noise; commoner in southern climates, known by other names, e. g. Fire of St. Clara, of St. Elias.
Definition taken from The Nuttall Encyclopædia, edited by the Reverend James Wood (1907)
Ellwood, Thomas * Eloge