Will o' the wisp: Encyclopedia II - Will o' the wisp - Folklore

Will o' the wisp - Folklore

Among European rural people, especially in Gaelic and Slavic folk cultures, the will o' the wisps is held to be mischievous spirits of the dead or other supernatural beings attempting to lead travellers astray (compare Puck.) Sometimes they are believed to be the spirits of unbaptized or stillborn children, flitting between heaven and hell (compare Wilis). Modern occultist elaborations bracket them with the salamander, a type of spirit wholly independent from humans (unlike ghosts, which are presumed to have been humans at some point in the past). They also fit the description of certain types of fairy, which may or may not have originated as human souls.

Finns and Danes, for example, believed will o' the wisp is marking a treasure. Treasure was deep in ground or water, and could be raised only when the fire was there. Sometimes you had to do some magickal tricks, too, to uncover the treasure. It was also believed in Finland that midsummer was the best time to search the will o' the wisps (and treasures below them). It was believed that when someone hid treasure in the ground, (s)he made the treasure available only at the midsummer, and set will o' wisp to mark that exact place and time so that (s)he could come to take the treasure back. Finns also believed that the creature guarding the treasure used fire to clean precious metals bright again. Yet another Finnish explanation of will o wisp was that it was a ghost of a dead child.

The Will o' the Wisp can be found in numerous folk tales around the British Isles, and is often a malicious character in the stories. Wirt Sikes in his book British Goblins mentions a Welsh tale about a Will o' the Wisp (Pwca). A peasant travelling home at dusk spots a bright light travelling along ahead of him. Looking closer, he sees that the light is a lantern held by a "dusky little figure" which he follows for several miles. All of a sudden he finds himself standing on the edge of a vast chasm with a roaring torrent of water rushing below him. At that precise moment the lantern carrier leaps across the gap, lifts the light high over its head and lets out a malicious laughter, after which the figure blows out the light leaving the poor peasant a long way from home, standing in pitch darkness at the edge of a precipice. This is a fairly common cautionary tale concerning the phenomena, however, the Ignis Fatuus were not always considered dangerous; there are some tales told about the Will o' the Wisp being guardians of treasure, much like the Irish leprechaun leading those brave enough to follow them to sure riches. Other stories tell of travelers getting lost in the woodland and coming upon a Will O' the Wisp and depending on how they treated the Will O' the Wisp, the spirit would either get them lost further in the woods or guide them out.

Katherine Briggs mentions the Shropshire Will the Smith in her book A Dictionary of Fairies. In this case Will is a wicked blacksmith who is given a second chance by Saint Peter at the gates to Heaven, but leads such a bad life that he ends up being doomed to wander the Earth. The Devil provides him with a single burning coal with which to warm himself, which he then used to lure foolish travellers into the marshes.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Folklore", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki