These untamed wetlands of slow-moving waters, exotic birds, buzzing insects, and underwater ripples are a wild place, not quite solid land and not quite open water, where legend and loss mingle. According to legend, the Rougarou, half man and half wolf, hunts the bayou, stalking misbehaving children or Catholics who fail to observe Lenten fasting. The fifollet, ghostly glowing orbs whose name comes from the French feu follet, are said either to mark a spirit guarding Jean Lafitte's buried treasure or to lure careless wanderers deep into the swamp. As delta land sinks and sea levels rise, salt water pushes farther inland from the Gulf and destroys coastal cypress swamps, leaving acres of dead, skeletal trees known as ghost forests. Jean Lafitte, a French-American buccaneer, smuggled goods and slaves from the Gulf to New Orleans in the early 1800s, moving through braided waterways to evade authorities, and some say he still haunts the swamps where his treasure lies buried.