Will-o'-the-wisp
In folklore, a will-o'-the-wisp, or will-o'-wisp, is an atmospheric ghost light seen by travellers at night, especially over bogs, swamps or marshes.
The phenomenon is known in the United Kingdom by a variety of names, including jack-o'-lantern, friar's lantern, and hinkypunk, and is said to mislead and/or guide travellers by resembling a flickering lamp or lantern. Equivalents of the will-o'-the-wisps appear in European folklore by various names, e.g., ignis fatuus in Latin, feu follet in French, Irrlicht or Irrwisch in Germany or dwaallicht in The Netherlands and fuoco fatuo in Italy. Equivalents occur in traditions of cultures worldwide ; e.g., the Naga fireballs on the Mekong in Thailand. In North America the phenomenon is known as the Paulding Light in Upper Peninsula of Michigan, the Spooklight in Southwestern Missouri and Northeastern Oklahoma, and St. Louis Light in Saskatchewan. In Arab folklore it is known as Abu Fanous.
In folklore, will-o'-the-wisps are typically attributed as ghosts, fairies or elemental spirits meant to reveal a path or direction. These wisps are portrayed as dancing or flowing in a static form, until noticed or followed, in which case they visually fade or disappear. Modern science explains the light aspect as natural phenomena such as bioluminescence or chemiluminescence, caused by the oxidation of phosphine, diphosphane and methane, produced by organic decay.
Nomenclature
Etymology
The term will-o'-the-wisp comes from wisp, a bundle of sticks or paper sometimes used as a torch and the name 'Will', thus meaning 'Will of the torch'. The term jack-o'-lantern originally referred to a will-o'-the-wisp. In the United States, they are often called spook-lights, ghost-lights, or orbs by folklorists.The Latin name ignis fatuus is composed of wikt:ignis#Latin, meaning 'fire' and wikt:fatuus, an adjective meaning 'foolish', 'silly' or 'simple'; it can thus be literally translated into English as 'foolish fire' or more idiomatically as 'giddy flame'. Despite its Latin origins, the term ignis fatuus is not attested in antiquity, and the name for the will-o'-the-wisp used by the ancient Romans is uncertain. The term is not attested in the Middle Ages either. Instead, the Latin ignis fatuus is documented no earlier than the 16th century in Germany, where it was coined by a German humanist, and appears to be a free translation of the long-existing German name wikt:Irrlicht conceived of in German folklore as a mischievous spirit of nature; the Latin translation was made to lend the German name intellectual credibility.
Beside Irrlicht, the will-o'-the-wisp has also been called in German Irrwisch, as found in e.g. Martin Luther's writings of the same 16th century.
In Irish, it is called tine ghealáin or Seán na Gealaí, a name linked to the legend of Stingy Jack and the jack o' lantern.
Synonyms
The names will-o'-the-wisp and jack-o'-lantern are used in etiological folk-tales, recorded in many variant forms in Ireland, Scotland, England, Wales, Appalachia, and Newfoundland.Folk belief attributes the phenomenon explicitly in the term hob lantern or hobby lantern. In her book A Dictionary of Fairies, K. M. Briggs provides an extensive list of other names for the same phenomenon, though the place where they are observed influences the naming considerably. When observed in graveyards, it is known as a ghost candle or corpse candle.
Folklore
Americas
Mexico has equivalents. Folklore explains the phenomenon to be witches who transformed into these lights. Another explanation refers to the lights as indicators to places where gold or hidden treasures are buried which can be found only with the help of children. In this one, they are called luces del dinero or luces del tesoro.The swampy area of Massachusetts known as the Bridgewater Triangle has folklore of ghostly orbs of light, and there have been modern observations of these ghost-lights in this area as well.
The fifollet of Louisiana derives from the French. The legend says that the fifollet is a soul sent back from the dead to do God's penance, but instead attacks people for vengeance. While it mostly takes part in harmless mischievous acts, the fifollet sometimes sucked the blood of children. Some legends say that it was the soul of a child who died before baptism.
Boi-tatá is the Brazilian equivalent of the will-o'-the-wisp. Regionally it is called Boitatá, Baitatá, Batatá, Bitatá, Batatão, Biatatá, M'boiguaçu, Mboitatá and Mbaê-Tata. The name comes from the Old Tupi language and means "fiery serpent". Its great fiery eyes leave it almost blind by day, but by night, it can see everything. According to legend, Boi-tatá was a big serpent which survived a great deluge. A "boiguaçu" left its cave after the deluge and, in the dark, went through the fields preying on the animals and corpses, eating exclusively its favourite morsel, the eyes. The collected light from the eaten eyes gave "Boitatá" its fiery gaze. Not really a dragon but a giant snake.
In Argentina and Uruguay, the will-o'-the-wisp phenomenon is known as luz mala and is one of the most important myths in both countries' folklore. This phenomenon is quite feared and is mostly seen in rural areas. It consists of an extremely shiny ball of light floating a few inches from the ground.
In Paraguay, will-o’-the-wisps are interpreted in popular tradition as indicators of the so-called plata yvyguy, referring to goods buried underground that are believed to have been hidden both by the Jesuits after their expulsion in 1767 and during the Paraguayan War. According to popular belief, the nocturnal appearance of a brief, moving flame, which travels from one place to another and extinguishes at a specific point, marks the exact location where such a treasure is buried
In Colombia, la Bolefuego or Candileja is the will-o'-the-wisp ghost of a vicious grandmother who raised her grandchildren without morals, and as such they became thieves and murderers. In the afterlife, the grandmother's spirit was condemned to wander the world surrounded in flames. In Trinidad and Tobago, a soucouyant is a "fireball witch"—an evil spirit that takes on the form of a flame at night. It enters homes through any gap it can find and drinks the blood of its victims.
Asia
Aleya is the name given to a strange light phenomenon occurring over the marshes as observed by Bengalis, especially the fishermen of Bangladesh and West Bengal. This marsh light is attributed to some kind of marsh gas apparitions that confuse fishermen, make them lose their bearings, and may even lead to drowning if one decided to follow them moving over the marshes. Local communities in the region believe that these strange hovering marsh-lights are in fact Ghost-lights representing the ghosts of fisherman who died fishing. Sometimes they confuse the fishermen, and sometimes they help them avoid future dangers. Chir batti, also spelled "chhir batti" or "cheer batti", is a dancing light phenomenon occurring on dark nights reported from the Banni grasslands, its seasonal marshy wetlands and the adjoining desert of the marshy salt flats of the Rann of Kutch Other varieties of ghost-lights appear in folklore across India, including the Kollivay Pey of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, the Kuliyande Choote of Kerala, and many variants from different tribes in Northeast India. In Kashmir, the Bramrachokh carries a pot of fire on its head.Similar phenomena are described in Japanese folklore, including, hi no tama, aburagae,, ushionibi, etc. All these phenomena are described as associated with graveyards. Kitsune, mythical yokai demons, are also associated with will 'o the wisp, with the marriage of two kitsune producing kitsune-bi, literally meaning 'fox-fire'. These phenomena are described in Shigeru Mizuki's 1985 book Graphic World of Japanese Phantoms.
In Korea the lights are associated with rice paddies, old trees, mountains or even in some houses and were called 'dokkebi bul', meaning goblin fire. They were deemed malevolent and impish, as they confused and lured passersby to lose their way or fall into pits at night.
The earliest Chinese reference to a will-o'-the-wisp appears to be the Chinese character 粦 lín, attested as far back as the Shang dynasty oracle bones, depicting a human-like figure surrounded by dots presumably representing the glowing lights of the will-o'-the-wisp, to which feet such as those under 舞 wǔ, 'to dance' were added in bronze script. Before the Han dynasty the top had evolved or been corrupted to represent fire, as the small seal script graph in a dictionary Shuowen Jiezi, compiled in the Han dynasty, shows. The dictionary explained that it was "ghost fire" coming from dead men, horses and cattle during wars and their blood turned into this kind of fire after many years. Although no longer in use alone, 粦 lín is in the character 磷 lín phosphorus, an element involved in scientific explanations of the will-o'-the-wisp phenomenon, and is also a phonetic component in other common characters with the same pronunciation.
Chinese polymath Shen Gua may have recorded such a phenomenon in the Book of Dreams, stating, "In the middle of the reign of emperor Jia You, at Yanzhou, in the Jiangsu province, an enormous pearl was seen especially in gloomy weather. At first it appeared in the marsh… and disappeared finally in the Xinkai Lake." It was described as very bright, illuminating the surrounding countryside and was a reliable phenomenon over ten years, an elaborate Pearl Pavilion being built by local inhabitants for those who wished to observe it.
Europe
In European folklore the lights are often believed to be the spirits of un-baptised or stillborn children, flitting between heaven and hell.In Germany there was a belief that a Irrlicht was the soul of an unbaptised child, but that it could be redeemed if the remains are first buried near the eaves of the church, so that at the moment rainwater splashes onto this grave, the churchman could pronounce the baptismal formula to sanctify the child.
In Sweden also, the will-o'-the-wisp represents the soul of an unbaptised person "trying to lead travellers to water in the hope of being baptized".
Danes, Finns, Swedes, Estonians, Latvians, Lithuanians, and Irish people and amongst some other groups believed that a will-o'-the-wisp also marked the location of a treasure deep in ground or water, which could be taken only when the fire was there. Sometimes magical procedures, and even a dead man's hand, were required as well, to uncover the treasure. In Finland and several other northern countries, it was believed that early autumn was the best time to search for will-o'-the-wisps and treasures below them. It was believed that when someone hid treasure in the ground, he made the treasure available only at the summer solstice, and set a will-o'-the-wisp to mark the exact place and time so that he could reclaim the treasure.
The Aarnivalkea, in Finnish mythology, are spots where an eternal flame associated with will-o'-the-wisps burns. They are claimed to mark the places where faerie gold is buried. They are protected by a glamour that would prevent anyone finding them by pure chance. However, if one finds a fern seed from a mythical flowering fern, the magical properties of that seed will lead the fortunate person to these treasures, in addition to providing one with a glamour of invisibility. Since in reality the fern produces no flower and reproduces via spores under the leaves, the myth specifies that it blooms only extremely rarely.