The will o' the wisps or ignis fatuus ("fool's fire") is the phenomenon of ghostly lights sometimes seen at night or in twilight hovering over damp ground in still air, often over bogs. The will o' the wisps is said to recede if approached. Much folklore has attached to it, leaving some reluctant to accept scientific explanations. Will o' the wisp - Terminology. The lights themselves (as opposed to the phenomenon) are more often referred to as something like corpse candles, as in the De ...

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• Will o' the wisp - Terminology
• Will o' the wisp - Folklore
• Will o' the wisp - Literature
• Will o' the wisp - Theories of origin
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• Will o' the wisp - Sources

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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 m ...

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Will o' the wisp, Will o' the wisp - Terminology, Will o' the wisp - Folklore, Will o' the wisp - Literature, Will o' the wisp - Theories of origin, Will o' the wisp - Other titles, Will o' the wisp - Sources

Read more here: » Will o' the wisp: Encyclopedia II - Will o' the wisp - Folklore

In literature, Will o' the wisp often has a metaphorical meaning, describing any hope or goal that leads one on but is impossible to reach, or something one finds sinister and confounding. Some examples of references in literature are: Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner describes the Will o'the wisp. The poem was first published in the Lyrical Ballads of 1798.    "About, about in reel and rout,      
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Will o' the wisp, Will o' the wisp - Terminology, Will o' the wisp - Folklore, Will o' the wisp - Literature, Will o' the wisp - Theories of origin, Will o' the wisp - Other titles, Will o' the wisp - Sources

Read more here: » Will o' the wisp: Encyclopedia II - Will o' the wisp - Literature

One possible naturalistic and scientific explanation for such phenomena is that the oxidation of hydrogen phosphide and methane gases produced by the decay of organic material may cause glowing lights to appear in the air. Experiments, for example, done by the Italian chemists Luigi Garlaschelli and Paolo Boschetti, have replicated the lights by adding chemicals to the gasses formed by rotting compounds. Critics claim that this theory does not easily account for reported cases which claim lights bob, swoo ...

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Will o' the wisp, Will o' the wisp - Terminology, Will o' the wisp - Folklore, Will o' the wisp - Literature, Will o' the wisp - Theories of origin, Will o' the wisp - Other titles, Will o' the wisp - Sources

Read more here: » Will o' the wisp: Encyclopedia II - Will o' the wisp - Theories of origin