Into the fog: ominous, deadly and persistent in English literature

The fog comes on little cat feet. It sits looking over harbor and city on silent haunches and then moves on.- American poet Carl Sandburg's poem "Fog"

There's something about a foggy shroud that stirs the imagination.

And the fog of London in particular has been an inspiration for novelists and crooners for nearly two centuries. 

Today we wanted to go into the fog and look at its place in poetry, and reality.

Although the legendarily thick fogs of London's past may just be memories these days, author Christine Corton brings has brought them back from the mists of time in her new book "London Fog: The Biography." She is a senior member of Wolfson College in Cambridge.

Mysterious and foreboding, few natural phenomena have the same impact on people as fog. 

And its something John MacQuarrie knows better than most. 

From 1981 until 1988 he was the lighthouse keeper at the Whitehead Island Lighthouse in Nova Scotia. John MacQuarrie joined us from Sand Point, Guysborough County in Nova Scotia.

Have you been lost in the fog?

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This segment was produced by The Current's Howard Goldenthal.