Ethereal and fleeting, mesmerizing and elusive,
these floating blue flames have been a mainstay in European folklore since at least the 14th
century. You may have heard the name Will-o’-the-Wisp,
but do you know what it is? Stories of sentient blue flames floating and
bouncing across marshes and bogs permeate cultures from northern Europe to Australia. While some stories have faded into ephemera
just as the floating blue flames that inspired them, these elusive creatures remain mainstays
of myth and legend in pockets across the globe. So what are they? Faeries? Fireballs? Ghosts? Atmospheric phenomena? Here’s the haunting history of the Will-o’-the-Wisp. [Monstrum intro.] The Will-o’-the-Wisp are most frequently
described as small, moving blue flames that hover a few feet off the ground and do not
flicker. Cold or cool to the touch -- if you’re brave
or reckless enough to touch one—they can be found in marshlands, bogs, and swamps. All treacherous places to wander even without
the alluring glow of the Will-o’-the-Wisp leading you deeper into danger. Follow the Will-o’-the-Wisp’s seductive
dance, and you may find hidden treasure… or a watery grave. Stories of these elusive and inscrutable flames
vary. Some say spotting the floating flame is an
indication that someone is blessed with the power of foresight, but more often, folklore
and literature paints them as impish tricksters, restless spirits, or malevolent beings. In Sweden, Will-o’-the-Wisps are ghosts
with lanterns fated to wander aimlessly for removing their neighbours’ boundary markers. In English tradition, the blue flames are
lights carried by elves. And in Australia, the light may approach someone,
but anyone who tries to catch it will disappear. Other tales say the lights are crafted by
fairies, or even a fire species all its own. In Belgium and the Netherlands, they are the
lost spirits of unbaptized children, while in other places the floating flames are said
to be the wandering souls of unhappy women, unrighteous men, priests who have broken their
vow of chastity, or even those souls who escaped purgatory. In fact, the ethereal light gleans its most
enduring name Will-o’-the-Wisp or “Will with a Wisp” from the Saxon word “wile”
for fraud, trick, or deceit, and the Swedish word “wisp” meaning a small lit bundle
of tinder. Variations include ‘Will-with-the-Wisp,’
‘Willy Wisp,’ and ‘Will o’ the Wykes.” Essentially, the name hints that the
light comes from some trickster spirit holding a flame aloft. Further north, in Norwegian folklore the Will-’o-the-Wisp
is called “Hoberdy’s Lantern,” “Hobany’s Lantern,” or even
“Hob and his Lantern.” ‘Hob’ may come from the Norwegian hoppe meaning mare, or the Old Norse word hoppa which translates to leap or hop. Which might not be as obvious a name as a
deceitful bundle of tinder, until you know that the Will-o’-the-Wisp’s movement often
resembles the cantering motion of a horse. Yet another moniker for the floating lights? “Jacky Lantern” or “Jack-o’-Lantern.” Yes, that’s right —the carved pumpkins
that adorn many a stoop or doorstep on Halloween actually borrow their name from this mysterious
light. Jack-o’-lantern is of English language origin
and simply means Jack of the Lantern. So when did we start hearing about these creatures? Well, the first recorded sighting of Will-o’-the-Wisp
is described in a 1340 text penned by Welsh poet Dafydd ap Gwilym.
He wrote that “in every hollow” live “a hundred wrymouthed wisps.” He names the phenomenon canwyll corff, Welsh for “corpse-candle,” thereby introducing what will become another common name for the
supernatural blue flames, and associating the lights with death and burial sites. The first appearance of the lights in the
English language occurs in 1563 (Book of Meteors by William Fulke) under the name “ignis
fatuus.” Here they are described as “foolish fire
that hurteth not.” In another variation of the Will-o’-the-Wisp
myth, the ghost lights are attributed to a mischievous sprite called a Puck, which uses
the light to lure humans to fall into ditches, bogs, and pools and then laughs at their predicament
before fleeing. Sometimes referred to in this form as “walking
fire” it can also appear as a horse, bull, or eagle, but it is always a trickster. Shakespeare adopts the name Puck for the character
of a shape-shifting sprite in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, first performed around 1596. This Puck turns into a phosphorescent glow
and hovers over the marshes at night to trick travelers. In Henry IV he uses the name ignis fatuus
to refer to “a ball of wildfire.” The Will-o’-the-Wisp even appears in John
Milton’s famous epic poem Paradise Lost (1667) as a malevolent distraction: “a wandring
fire/Compact of unctuous vapour, which the night/Condenses, and the cold environs round/Kindl’d
through agitation to a flame,/Which oft, they say, some evil spirit attends,/ Hovering and
blazing with delusive light,/Misleads th’amaz’d night-wanderer from his way,/ To bogs and
mires, and oft through pond or pool,/There swallow’d up and lost, from succour far...” Like many other references in literature and
folklore, Milton’s Will-o’-the-Wisp is associated with danger, bad news, and even
death. But over time, the elusive blue flame also
became a literary metaphor for anything that is just out of reach, a delusion one may chase
endlessly but unsuccessfully. Will-o’-the-Wisp sightings are reported
across the globe, and the frequency of their marshland appearances points to a very real
origin—the stories may be made up, but the lights themselves are not. There’s scientific truth to these reports. Theories explaining the Will-’o-the-Wisp
phenomenon circulated in scientific communities for hundreds of years. In fact, in 1704 Isaac Newton wrote in Opticks
of the “ignis fatuus” as “vapours shining without heat.” The vague statement unsurprisingly sparked
vigorous debate in the academic communities of the 18th and 19th centuries. English folklorist and historian Jabez Allies travelled over Europe collecting stories and evidence of antiquity—and in
1839 he got lucky with his own first-hand experience catching a glimpse of the mysterious
flame. Allies claims that while traveling near Worcestershire
in England he saw the Will-o’-the-Wisp. He described the light as “very clear and
strong,” unwavering, and “much bluer” in color than a candle. He wrote: “Sometimes it was only like a
flash in the pan on the ground; at other times it rose up several feet and fell to the earth,
and became extinguished; and many times it proceeded horizontally from fifty to one hundred
yards with an undulating motion, like the flight of the green woodpecker, and about
as rapid; and once or twice it proceeded with considerable rapidity in a straight line upon
or close to the ground.” Allies reports that the two nights in a row
he saw the phenomenon there were only minimal clouds and bright starlight. Both evenings were “rather warm” and had
no fog. He speculates that the Will-o’-the-Wisps
appear on nights after a rainfall in the winter season. Was Allies on to something? What else could explain these odd flames? Fireflies? Too small, and they glow with a yellow or
green flickering light. Glow-worms? The females do produce a bright light but
don’t fly. Male glow-worms fly—but don’t glow. St. Elmo’s fire perhaps? The plasma-creating weather phenomenon does
produce a blue glow, though it requires a strong electrical field in the atmosphere
and an encounter with a conductor like the mast of a ship or the wing of a plane, which
doesn’t appear in reported Will-o’-the-Wisp sightings. What about ball lightning? Spherical, glowing, and capable of lasting
for longer than a brief flash, yes. But only during thunderstorms, with ranges
in color, and usually accompanied by a hissing sound and a distinct odor. Will-o’-the-Wisp aren’t associated with
any smell and only seem to appear a day or more after rainfall or storm. Perhaps then, dare I say it—luminous owls? An unusual occurrence in which the feathers
of the bird are contaminated by a fungus whose metabolic process produces a glow when the
owl is in the dark. But Will-o’-the-Wisps move more slowly than
owls typically hunt and don’t tend to cover much ground. The most likely explanation? Spontaneous combustion of marsh or swamp gas,
a rationale proposed at least as early as 1729 by W. Derham who, after observing the
phenomenon over half a decade, directly refuted the hypothesis that the lights were caused
by glowworms flying together. Given the frequently reported occurrence of
the Will-o’-the-Wisp on marshland, swamps, and bogs, swamp gas seems pretty plausible. Made up of about 60 percent methane as well
as other components like carbon dioxide, swamp gas is the byproduct of decomposing vegetation
in areas like swamps, marshes, and even landfills. And in some rare cases, if there is enough
heat and oxygen produced by the metabolic process, the gas can spontaneously combust
and produce fire. And methane just happens to burn with a blue
flame and a yellowish glow. Will the mystery of the Will-o’-the-Wisp
ever truly be solved? Even today many people swear the Will-o’-the-Wisp
is a supernatural or paranormal experience. Interestingly, there have been no modern encounters
with the Will-o’-the-Wisp and therefore no new data to add to any potential debunking
theories. Perhaps there are no more Will-o’-the-Wisps
because we have drained and demolished so many marshes and lowlands. Maybe we’ll never know what caused the glowing
blue flames spotted so many years ago. And I kind of like that. Glow on mysterious fiery orbs. Glow on.
