By the Parish Lantern is a timeless story about grief. Set in a small cottage, in the British rural countryside at the turn of the century, the story focuses around an old married couple living a humble life. The wife is a big, jolly woman with a peculiar obsession for moths, while the husband is a cantankerous old sourpuss who doesn’t share her enthusiasm for anything with more than two legs. One tragic night, in front of the fireplace, the wife dies whilst at her needlework. The husband, now alone in the house, shuts out the world and bars the windows and doors.

No matter how hard he tries he cannot keep absolutely everything out as light eventually finds its way in in the form of a brilliant white moth which bears some eerie similarities to his dearly departed.
These nightly visits begin as a nuisance but gradually he begins to think that perhaps it really is his wife, in a new form, one she loved so much in life, come to watch over him now in his mourning.

Those of us who have known something of grief, know that even the most rational mind can turn to superstitious and fantastical fancies when confronted with unfathomable loss.
His heart transformed, he begins to look forward to these visits and to fill the house with light, beckoning the moth home each night.

We are left asking the questions, was it really his wife? Did he see what he wanted to see at a time when he needed comfort and in the end don’t we all believe what we need to, to live on after loss?