WEBVTT - Will-o'-the-Wisp: A Light in the Swamp 0:00:03.000 --> 0:00:05.880 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stop 0:00:05.880 --> 0:00:14.920 works dot com. Hello, and welcome to Stuff to Blow 0:00:15.000 --> 0:00:18.360 Your Mind. My name is Joe McCormick. Your other hosts, 0:00:18.520 --> 0:00:21.320 Robert Lamb and Christian Seger are out of the office 0:00:21.400 --> 0:00:24.520 this week, so we decided to air an update to 0:00:24.600 --> 0:00:27.680 one of our October classics from last year, The Will 0:00:27.760 --> 0:00:30.320 of the Wisp. So first you're going to hear the 0:00:30.360 --> 0:00:33.880 original episode that Robert and I recorded last October about 0:00:33.880 --> 0:00:37.960 this very weird and wonderful historical phenomenon. And after that, 0:00:38.040 --> 0:00:40.680 I'm going to read some messages we received from listeners 0:00:40.720 --> 0:00:44.440 about their own reported experiences with the ghost fire of 0:00:44.479 --> 0:00:47.360 the Wilderness. So be sure to stick around at the 0:00:47.479 --> 0:00:50.640 end for more. And without further ado, let's follow the 0:00:50.720 --> 0:00:59.840 Light into the marsh. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow 0:00:59.840 --> 0:01:03.720 your My my name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. So, Robert, Yes, 0:01:04.080 --> 0:01:07.120 I want you to put yourself in a scenario. Okay, 0:01:07.280 --> 0:01:11.040 all right, I'm doing it. You are a peasant in 0:01:11.200 --> 0:01:15.200 medieval England. All right, it's the place to start. But 0:01:15.200 --> 0:01:17.760 I'm with you. Yeah, it's so. I know it's rough, 0:01:18.600 --> 0:01:21.520 but you're a peasant in medieval England in in sort 0:01:21.560 --> 0:01:25.000 of the fen Land. Okay, So there there's some marshes 0:01:25.080 --> 0:01:28.639 all around you, and this is a time and place 0:01:28.720 --> 0:01:32.280 where for your life the world is sort of alive 0:01:32.400 --> 0:01:35.840 with magical beings. So who knows if there's a ferry 0:01:36.000 --> 0:01:38.319 or a goblin hiding under a rock or in a 0:01:38.360 --> 0:01:41.080 bush over by the side of the road. Who knows. 0:01:41.280 --> 0:01:42.880 There are lots of things out there that you just 0:01:42.920 --> 0:01:45.479 don't understand. It's a world that only by fire. It's 0:01:45.480 --> 0:01:48.000 a demon haunted world. Yeah, yeah, I think that's a 0:01:48.000 --> 0:01:50.400 perfect way of putting it. Um. So you're out one 0:01:50.520 --> 0:01:56.200 night returning home from church, and dusk is coming on, 0:01:56.920 --> 0:01:59.080 and as you're walking your way through the path that 0:01:59.240 --> 0:02:02.600 winds along the marshlands at night, and the crickets are 0:02:02.680 --> 0:02:06.600 chirping and you hear the frogs, you suddenly see something 0:02:06.680 --> 0:02:09.880 kind of strange off off to your left, sort of 0:02:09.880 --> 0:02:12.680 in the right, at the edge of your field of vision. 0:02:13.840 --> 0:02:18.959 You see a bluish looking flame that's just hovering over 0:02:19.000 --> 0:02:21.799 the ground that that's sort of beyond where you can 0:02:21.840 --> 0:02:24.480 see exactly where it is. It's it's among some trees 0:02:24.680 --> 0:02:27.960 and some some marsh grasses. Now, what do you do. 0:02:27.960 --> 0:02:30.640 Do you just continue on your path or do you 0:02:30.680 --> 0:02:34.040 walk over to see what it is? Who? What can 0:02:34.080 --> 0:02:36.880 I do? Uh? Let me do a perception check. Okay, 0:02:37.800 --> 0:02:42.600 roll your tenth. Well, I'm I'm seeing a basically a 0:02:42.680 --> 0:02:46.280 ghostly blue flame that's just hovering in the air. I'm 0:02:46.280 --> 0:02:49.480 thinking I'm gonna want to avoid anything to do with that, 0:02:50.720 --> 0:02:54.880 because if it's some sort of supernatural entity at night, Uh, 0:02:54.960 --> 0:02:57.519 it's probably up to no good. It's I'm probably better 0:02:57.560 --> 0:03:01.160 off to stick into the course and going straight home. Well, 0:03:01.200 --> 0:03:06.480 you're fantastic at resisting temptation. Congratulations, you're incurious, proud of it, 0:03:06.560 --> 0:03:08.799 and you're gonna live a live to a ripe old 0:03:08.840 --> 0:03:12.320 age in the solid knowledge that you just didn't check 0:03:12.400 --> 0:03:15.880 things out. Well, yeah, I mean, because I've probably heard 0:03:16.000 --> 0:03:19.080 enough stories like how does every weird horror story begin, 0:03:19.280 --> 0:03:22.280 every strange folklore? It begins with that guy getting off 0:03:22.280 --> 0:03:25.000 the beaten path, moving out of the path and going 0:03:25.040 --> 0:03:28.680 into the wilderness and maybe following some sort of strange flame. Well, okay, 0:03:28.760 --> 0:03:31.160 let me try you again. Then let's say that we 0:03:31.320 --> 0:03:34.160 do the same scenario, but you've already gotten lost. You're 0:03:34.160 --> 0:03:36.280 on your way home from church dusk is coming on. 0:03:36.360 --> 0:03:39.840 You've lost the path and suddenly you are lost in 0:03:39.920 --> 0:03:42.400 the marsh lands and you you can't find your way 0:03:42.400 --> 0:03:45.800 back to the path. But up ahead you do see 0:03:45.960 --> 0:03:50.200 a light. Uh, you see a flame bobbing that's just 0:03:50.280 --> 0:03:52.680 above the horizon ahead of you, and you're not quite 0:03:52.680 --> 0:03:54.440 sure what it is. Now do you go toward the 0:03:54.520 --> 0:03:57.680 light or not? Well, I'm lost, So that light might 0:03:57.800 --> 0:04:00.920 very well be somebody's camp fire. That might be as 0:04:00.960 --> 0:04:03.480 a sign of humans out here, so I should Yeah, 0:04:03.520 --> 0:04:06.600 maybe I should head that way because either that either 0:04:06.880 --> 0:04:08.600 they're in the clear or maybe they can help me 0:04:08.600 --> 0:04:11.200 get out right. It could be a traveler's lantern, could 0:04:11.280 --> 0:04:13.280 lead you back to the path and get you on 0:04:13.320 --> 0:04:17.080 your way home and out of this muck. So let's 0:04:17.080 --> 0:04:19.680 say you follow it for a while, but you can't 0:04:19.680 --> 0:04:21.840 ever seem to catch up with it, and you just 0:04:21.920 --> 0:04:24.800 keep going farther and farther along in the marsh, but 0:04:24.880 --> 0:04:27.039 it's always just out of where you can reach it 0:04:27.320 --> 0:04:29.720 or get a good look at exactly what it is. 0:04:30.520 --> 0:04:33.719 Do you keep following? Well, the more I follow, the 0:04:33.800 --> 0:04:36.360 more I'm probably gonna feel like I'm being manipulated in 0:04:36.480 --> 0:04:40.719 this led on a winding goat trail to nowhere. So uh, 0:04:40.880 --> 0:04:43.839 which granted, and maybe that's a perfect metaphor for life, 0:04:43.880 --> 0:04:47.479 but I'm probably gonna get a little frustrated. Yeah, but 0:04:47.680 --> 0:04:49.760 what other choice do you have right now? You're lost 0:04:49.800 --> 0:04:52.120 in the marsh and you better keep following. Yeah, I 0:04:52.120 --> 0:04:54.080 can't go back. It's just as much trouble to go 0:04:54.120 --> 0:04:55.880 back as it is to push forward. And maybe if 0:04:55.920 --> 0:04:57.919 I hurry a little bit, I can actually catch that 0:04:58.000 --> 0:05:00.320 during thing. Okay, So let's say you're trying to catch it. 0:05:00.440 --> 0:05:03.800 Unfortunately you keep coming up on it, thinking you're just 0:05:03.920 --> 0:05:08.000 about to get to it, but it goes away and 0:05:08.080 --> 0:05:11.520 eventually you don't see it anymore at all, and you're 0:05:11.560 --> 0:05:15.320 there alone in the dark, stuck in some quicksands in 0:05:15.360 --> 0:05:18.400 the marsh. And what are you gonna do? Well, you're 0:05:18.400 --> 0:05:21.600 gonna stay struggle. You struggle. That's how you get add 0:05:21.600 --> 0:05:24.200 a quicksand. No, it's not, it's not at all. Do 0:05:24.240 --> 0:05:26.360 we have an episode on quicksand? I don't think we 0:05:26.520 --> 0:05:28.880 do yet, but it's a fascinating topic. Yeah, maybe we 0:05:28.880 --> 0:05:31.560 should explore that sometime. Well, if you ever find yourself 0:05:31.600 --> 0:05:33.880 trapped in quicksand, whether you're in a marsh and you 0:05:33.920 --> 0:05:35.920 have been led there by a ghost light or not. 0:05:36.320 --> 0:05:38.360 Don't struggle. Oh, that's why I have these ferrets in 0:05:38.400 --> 0:05:41.520 my backpack. They're gonna help me out. That'll just work 0:05:41.560 --> 0:05:43.800 you deeper into the into the muck. No, that's not 0:05:43.839 --> 0:05:45.480 what you want to do. But anyway, I've been describing 0:05:45.520 --> 0:05:47.960 a scenario that might sound kind of outlandish to you 0:05:48.000 --> 0:05:50.240 people at home, but I think this type of story 0:05:50.440 --> 0:05:56.240 was very common two people of say Europe in the 0:05:56.240 --> 0:06:00.000 Middle Ages, or actually to folklore all over the world 0:06:00.040 --> 0:06:02.279 old in one form or another, that there will be 0:06:02.320 --> 0:06:06.640 stories that bear similarities to this, That there's a glowing 0:06:06.839 --> 0:06:09.800 entity or some kind of flame that looks like a 0:06:09.880 --> 0:06:14.720 lantern or like a blue luminescence that's just hovering out 0:06:14.760 --> 0:06:17.599 of your vision and if you if you try to 0:06:17.640 --> 0:06:20.560 get to it, you can never quite catch it. Yeah, 0:06:20.760 --> 0:06:23.880 what is this thing? It is the will of the wisp, 0:06:24.400 --> 0:06:26.960 that's right, And it goes by a number of names 0:06:26.960 --> 0:06:30.080 as well discussed, but it's the it's it's that that 0:06:30.200 --> 0:06:35.080 false fire right, that ignis fatus right and in fatuous, fatuous, 0:06:35.279 --> 0:06:39.559 and that's what I think. It's. It's ignie so fire. Yeah, 0:06:39.760 --> 0:06:42.560 and then f A t U U s that makes 0:06:42.600 --> 0:06:47.839 me think fatuous, like you're being fatuous. Yes, so this 0:06:47.960 --> 0:06:50.400 is uh, it's it's the swamp light, the marsh light, 0:06:50.920 --> 0:06:56.280 fairy light. It's this ghostly luminescence that appears typically in 0:06:56.360 --> 0:07:00.200 marsh lands and swamp lands, by ways, fins, marshes, is 0:07:00.560 --> 0:07:03.880 the lonely roads, the places that maybe you wouldn't want 0:07:03.920 --> 0:07:09.760 to be stuck at night, you'll see this strange glowing entity. Um, 0:07:09.840 --> 0:07:13.760 what is it? Is it a mischievous spirit? Yeah? Oftentimes 0:07:13.800 --> 0:07:16.480 it is. It's seen as this either a mischievous spirit 0:07:16.680 --> 0:07:21.840 or sometimes an outright demotic demonic entity that ends up 0:07:22.240 --> 0:07:25.200 leading humans astray. If you try and follow it, you 0:07:25.240 --> 0:07:27.960 can't quite catch it, and eventually you're gonna wind up 0:07:28.080 --> 0:07:32.000 in the quicksand just loft in the wilderness over a cliff, 0:07:32.040 --> 0:07:35.440 following off a cliff, walking straight into hell. Who knows what, 0:07:35.560 --> 0:07:38.880 but it's leading you off the path. Like I'm you 0:07:38.960 --> 0:07:42.280 made a great comparison. It's like a bad GPS system. Yeah, 0:07:42.840 --> 0:07:45.360 do you remember that In there an episode of the Office, 0:07:45.400 --> 0:07:48.480 the GPS tells them to drive the car across the lake. 0:07:48.920 --> 0:07:53.920 It's scenario because also sometimes you see motifs where it's 0:07:53.960 --> 0:07:57.880 the it's the light that's representing like fairy gold or something. 0:07:57.960 --> 0:08:00.240 So who I follow it, I'll get some riches and 0:08:00.280 --> 0:08:02.080 you can't reach it because it's like the other end 0:08:02.080 --> 0:08:04.560 of a rainbow, right. Yeah, And this lower comes from 0:08:04.920 --> 0:08:08.160 all across time, all over the world. It's very common. 0:08:08.840 --> 0:08:11.960 One common feature of the ghost light or the glowing 0:08:12.080 --> 0:08:15.360 entity will the whisp lower is that the lights tend 0:08:15.400 --> 0:08:18.120 to recede as you approach them. You can never quite 0:08:18.160 --> 0:08:20.360 get to them or get ahold of them, and they 0:08:20.440 --> 0:08:23.560 draw the traveler farther and farther off course as they go. 0:08:24.240 --> 0:08:27.200 Another common feature is the color. And this is interesting. 0:08:27.240 --> 0:08:31.720 So sometimes people just report various types of light, but 0:08:32.120 --> 0:08:37.199 it's very often described as blue or bluish green. And 0:08:37.559 --> 0:08:40.359 in the words of one scientist to study the phenomenon, 0:08:40.440 --> 0:08:42.440 Alan A. Mills, who were going to quote later in 0:08:42.480 --> 0:08:46.320 the episode, he called it quote an ephemeral bluish luminous 0:08:46.320 --> 0:08:50.520 exhalation associated with marshy places. That's his will of the 0:08:50.520 --> 0:08:55.640 whisp definition. So it's it's instantly identifiable as as something 0:08:55.720 --> 0:08:58.400 that's it's not a torch, it's not a lantern, it's 0:08:58.440 --> 0:09:02.760 something else, something for perhaps magical. Yeah, and so we 0:09:02.840 --> 0:09:06.480 have various names for this phenomenon. I'm not gonna run 0:09:06.520 --> 0:09:09.920 through all of them, but just some of them. For instance, 0:09:10.200 --> 0:09:16.040 in the English traditions, you have Dicko Tuesday. Um, Kinky Puck. 0:09:16.320 --> 0:09:18.920 Hinky Puck, by the way, is a key punk punk. 0:09:19.520 --> 0:09:23.080 Hinky punk is a sprite with only one leg and 0:09:23.080 --> 0:09:27.120 it carries a candle to mislead travelers. Yeah. Um, you 0:09:27.160 --> 0:09:30.480 have other names like corpse candle, l fire, hobb lantern, 0:09:30.720 --> 0:09:35.320 hobby lantern, fire drake, jack O lantern. So we're seeing 0:09:35.360 --> 0:09:40.199 a convergence here with like Will of the Whisp, Jacko Lantern. Uh, 0:09:40.559 --> 0:09:44.400 maybe Dicko Tuesday is something else, but anyway, anyway, that 0:09:44.559 --> 0:09:48.240 the idea here is that this first part is actually 0:09:48.280 --> 0:09:53.040 a name. It's like Jack or Will. These are characters 0:09:53.120 --> 0:09:55.760 who have emerged in the lore of people trying to 0:09:55.840 --> 0:09:58.920 explain what happens when they see these ghost lights in 0:09:58.960 --> 0:10:02.040 the marshes. But it's a character who carries some kind 0:10:02.040 --> 0:10:04.480 of light or torch with them. The whisp idea being 0:10:04.480 --> 0:10:07.000 like a wisp of sticks that would be a torch, right, 0:10:07.040 --> 0:10:09.040 I mean, it's the idea that there seems to be 0:10:09.440 --> 0:10:11.720 a consciousness behind it, a will behind it. It seems 0:10:11.720 --> 0:10:14.600 to be an entity of some sort. One that comes 0:10:14.720 --> 0:10:17.840 up a lot is Will the Smith. Not Will Smith, 0:10:17.880 --> 0:10:22.360 our beloved national treasure, but but rather the soul of 0:10:22.400 --> 0:10:25.000 a debauched human who has given, who has given a 0:10:25.040 --> 0:10:27.360 second chance at life in order to redeem his soul. 0:10:27.880 --> 0:10:30.360 Only he's screwed up again and so now he can't 0:10:30.400 --> 0:10:32.760 get into heaven or hell, so he has to wander 0:10:32.800 --> 0:10:35.160 the earth, and Satan gave him a glowing coal to 0:10:35.200 --> 0:10:38.320 warm himself, which he uses to lure other victims to 0:10:38.400 --> 0:10:41.360 his dinner, to their doom, because he's just a horrible individual. 0:10:41.440 --> 0:10:45.000 So he's walking around with some hell fire in Marsh's 0:10:45.440 --> 0:10:48.440 trying to get revenge on humanity, right. And you see 0:10:48.440 --> 0:10:51.680 a number of different variations on Will the Smith, where 0:10:51.679 --> 0:10:54.960 it's some sort of immortal wanderer, some sort of a 0:10:55.000 --> 0:10:57.840 spirit uh entity that can't get into heaven or a 0:10:57.880 --> 0:11:02.160 hell um. You also have in Scotland the Spunkies. In 0:11:02.200 --> 0:11:05.920 Ireland you have fox Fire or William with the little Flame, 0:11:06.080 --> 0:11:10.040 which is essentially Will the Smith. In Germany you have blood, 0:11:10.360 --> 0:11:14.040 you have the Dickie potent. Wait, hold on blood just BLLD. 0:11:15.200 --> 0:11:18.199 And then there is of course uh ear lickt uh 0:11:18.240 --> 0:11:21.160 and this is uh, the ear lift is actually as 0:11:21.240 --> 0:11:23.360 as the willow. The whisp in today is the subject 0:11:23.400 --> 0:11:26.040 of an Arnold Bockland painting as well as the Cloth 0:11:26.080 --> 0:11:30.160 Shool's album. So there you go. Um. And you see 0:11:30.200 --> 0:11:33.080 a lot of accounts of this phenomenon from from Germany 0:11:33.120 --> 0:11:38.160 for sure. Uh. In France there's a sanyand tad, which 0:11:38.160 --> 0:11:41.000 in the folklore of Brittany is a type of elf, 0:11:41.160 --> 0:11:44.280 and they dance together at night with candles on their fingertips, 0:11:44.320 --> 0:11:47.800 each spinning independently, and any mortal who happens upon them 0:11:48.280 --> 0:11:51.120 becomes disoriented and confused. So it's kind of like the 0:11:51.280 --> 0:11:54.280 the the the example in the Hobbit right where they 0:11:54.360 --> 0:11:56.720 see some fire in the woods and they follow it 0:11:56.760 --> 0:12:01.320 out there and it's elves having their mischief there in 0:12:01.360 --> 0:12:06.120 the woods, and it's just disorienting. Yeah, like they're they're 0:12:06.760 --> 0:12:10.120 I imagine there's some elfin Debaucher, Are you going on? Yeah? Yeah, 0:12:10.160 --> 0:12:12.719 I mean, you know, Tolkien didn't get into it as much, 0:12:12.720 --> 0:12:15.120 but you know, they get to some weird stuff. Uh. 0:12:15.240 --> 0:12:20.000 In Finland you have Likiko, which means that the flaming one. 0:12:20.400 --> 0:12:22.400 And this is interesting because in this you have the 0:12:22.480 --> 0:12:25.720 transformed soul of a child that's buried in the forest 0:12:25.800 --> 0:12:28.640 and now wanders with a flame at night, but also 0:12:28.720 --> 0:12:32.160 serves as a guardian of wild animals and plants that 0:12:32.160 --> 0:12:33.880 are in the woods. So it's kind of almost like 0:12:33.920 --> 0:12:36.199 a swamp thing vibe going on here, where it's the 0:12:36.480 --> 0:12:41.040 spirit guardian of the environment. Um. You see a version. 0:12:41.160 --> 0:12:45.679 You see versions in Native American traditions. You see, uh, 0:12:45.800 --> 0:12:49.959 the one I ran across from the Penobscate Native American 0:12:50.000 --> 0:12:54.320 tribe in the name for this issue date, there's also 0:12:54.880 --> 0:12:59.040 Kanza perry uh. And this is something that exists in 0:12:59.080 --> 0:13:02.679 the folklore of the Chairmis and Mari people. That's a 0:13:02.760 --> 0:13:06.600 Finno you Greek ethnic group. You see. You also see 0:13:06.600 --> 0:13:11.240 it in the Amazon Basin in the form of bakata. Oh. 0:13:11.280 --> 0:13:12.720 And this one's a really good one. This is in 0:13:13.559 --> 0:13:18.760 South America in Chile, the creature known as Alecanto. And 0:13:18.800 --> 0:13:21.000 this is a night spirit in the shape of a 0:13:21.040 --> 0:13:25.440 glowing metallic bird. Yeah. It lives in the mountains and 0:13:25.480 --> 0:13:29.560 it said to feast upon gold and silver veins. So 0:13:29.600 --> 0:13:31.880 if you glimpse its light at night and you're you know, 0:13:32.880 --> 0:13:35.440 you're kind of a greedy individual. You might want to 0:13:35.480 --> 0:13:39.360 follow it and find that rich mining deposit. But Alecanto, 0:13:39.720 --> 0:13:42.400 uh is is hip to your your scheme here, and 0:13:42.400 --> 0:13:45.320 we'll probably lure you over the edge of a cliff instead. Oh, 0:13:45.400 --> 0:13:47.400 this fits with the same stuff you would encounter in 0:13:47.440 --> 0:13:50.040 Europe about sometimes the will of the wisp being the 0:13:50.080 --> 0:13:53.280 guardian of a treasure. Yeah, not just luring you off 0:13:53.280 --> 0:13:55.920 the path, but like standing guard over where the gold 0:13:55.960 --> 0:13:59.440 is hidden exactly. And I and I wondered to what 0:13:59.520 --> 0:14:02.079 extent it's just a continuation of European beliefs in the 0:14:02.320 --> 0:14:04.720 New World there, I imagine that's very much the case. 0:14:05.280 --> 0:14:07.760 But there are also plenty of ghost lights in in 0:14:07.920 --> 0:14:12.760 Asian folklore. In Bengal traditions you have Layah, which is 0:14:12.800 --> 0:14:19.200 the name given to unexplained strange um marshal wood lights there. Okay, 0:14:19.600 --> 0:14:23.560 And then of course, uh, outside of folk folklores and 0:14:23.600 --> 0:14:28.480 folk tales, we have versions and are more recent media 0:14:28.600 --> 0:14:32.040 as well. Well. I mean I would call dungeons and 0:14:32.120 --> 0:14:36.080 dragons perfectly acceptable folklore. Yes, And you know, for a 0:14:36.080 --> 0:14:38.920 lot of people, this may be one's first encounter with 0:14:38.920 --> 0:14:42.880 with willow the whisp or willow whisps, as they've called there. Uh, 0:14:43.360 --> 0:14:45.240 in case your Dungeon and Dragons fan or have any 0:14:45.240 --> 0:14:48.720 a familiarity there, their alignment is chaotic evil, so they 0:14:48.720 --> 0:14:52.160 are bad news. They're not just a little mischievous. They 0:14:52.160 --> 0:14:54.720 are awful. If they were just a little mischievous, what 0:14:54.720 --> 0:14:57.680 would they be chaotic neutral? Yeah, I think they would 0:14:57.680 --> 0:14:59.920 be more I would I would say more chaotic neutral 0:15:00.000 --> 0:15:02.040 with that were the case. But they are just completely 0:15:02.120 --> 0:15:05.560 like evil, mischievous, mischievous. Uh. They have a challenge rating 0:15:05.600 --> 0:15:07.120 of two, so they're not too bad. But get this, 0:15:07.240 --> 0:15:11.400 they have a dexterity stat of twenty eight. Uh. That's 0:15:11.440 --> 0:15:15.280 like like generally eighteen is an exceedingly high level for 0:15:15.760 --> 0:15:19.280 a normal humanoid. So they have crazy dexterity because them 0:15:19.280 --> 0:15:22.440 a plus nine and all dexterity sets and according to 0:15:22.480 --> 0:15:25.680 the most recent Monster manual, uh their quote, the souls 0:15:25.760 --> 0:15:28.720 of evil beings that perished in anguish orm misery as 0:15:28.760 --> 0:15:32.600 they wanted and forsaken lands permeated with magical powers and 0:15:32.640 --> 0:15:36.200 they use the usual lure people to their doom act 0:15:36.240 --> 0:15:38.360 in the game. Plus, they can shock victims for two 0:15:38.400 --> 0:15:41.400 D eight damage. They can drain life and sometimes in 0:15:41.440 --> 0:15:44.320 the Dungeons and Dragons, the world they align themselves with 0:15:44.480 --> 0:15:48.320 hags or black dragons or evil occultists. Uh, in order 0:15:48.360 --> 0:15:52.400 to quote drink the agony of slaughter. So so they're 0:15:52.400 --> 0:15:54.840 pretty cool. I kind of want to bust one out 0:15:54.920 --> 0:15:57.600 in uh in my game. Now, well, that's great, and 0:15:57.760 --> 0:16:00.600 that does mirror some of the folkloric edition, like the 0:16:00.640 --> 0:16:03.520 idea that they might be an unrighteous spirit that's left 0:16:03.520 --> 0:16:06.360 wandering the world. So they might be, you know, a 0:16:06.440 --> 0:16:10.400 person who's just rendered spiritually unclean, maybe by having died 0:16:10.520 --> 0:16:14.560 unbaptized in Christian tradition or something. Or or maybe there 0:16:14.560 --> 0:16:16.720 are you know, a sinful person who can't get into 0:16:16.720 --> 0:16:18.960 heaven or hell, like we talked to h like we 0:16:19.000 --> 0:16:22.680 talked about with Will the Smith and the titular will 0:16:22.720 --> 0:16:25.120 and the will of the wisp. But the will of 0:16:25.160 --> 0:16:28.160 the Whisp also shows up in in plenty of later literature. 0:16:28.280 --> 0:16:31.600 You know, in some classic English poetry, you'll get references 0:16:31.640 --> 0:16:33.280 to the will of the Wisp, like in the Rhyme 0:16:33.280 --> 0:16:37.080 of the Ancient Mariner by Coleridge. Uh, there is there 0:16:37.160 --> 0:16:39.720 is a scene that describes ghost lights out on the 0:16:39.800 --> 0:16:43.560 sea that says about about in real and route the 0:16:43.640 --> 0:16:47.160 death fires danced at night the water like a witch's 0:16:47.200 --> 0:16:52.480 oils burnt green and blue and white. Yeah, I like that. There. 0:16:52.600 --> 0:16:55.080 There's Will the Wisp in Paradise Lost too, and John 0:16:55.120 --> 0:16:59.000 Milton's Paradise Lost. There is the scene where the snake 0:16:59.240 --> 0:17:03.560 in the garden of eden Is is attempting to tempt Eve. 0:17:03.760 --> 0:17:07.440 Attempting to tempt is trying to get Eve to come 0:17:07.480 --> 0:17:09.920 and eat of the fruit, you know, the forbidden fruit. 0:17:11.080 --> 0:17:14.199 And it compares the snake's temptation of Eve to a 0:17:14.240 --> 0:17:16.359 will of the Wisp in the sense that both would 0:17:16.359 --> 0:17:19.720 be leading someone astray. This is in book nine, starting 0:17:19.720 --> 0:17:25.080 around line and so it compares the snake too, as 0:17:25.119 --> 0:17:29.240 when a wandering fire compact of unctuous vapor with the 0:17:29.359 --> 0:17:34.280 night condenses and the cold environs round kindled through agitation 0:17:34.359 --> 0:17:38.280 to a flame, which oft they say, some evil spirit attends, 0:17:38.400 --> 0:17:42.640 hovering and blazing with delusive light, misleads the amazed night 0:17:42.720 --> 0:17:46.320 wanderer from his way to bogs and myers and off 0:17:46.440 --> 0:17:49.920 through pond or pool. They're swallowed up and lost from 0:17:50.040 --> 0:17:53.199 sucker far. Now this is this is interesting and I 0:17:53.200 --> 0:17:57.199 think potentially telling for later on in that um Milton 0:17:57.520 --> 0:18:03.679 is describing a supernatural entity by comparing it to willow 0:18:03.720 --> 0:18:06.959 the whisp. Yeah, so keep that in mind if talking 0:18:07.000 --> 0:18:10.080 about will of the whisp as a natural phenomenon, right, 0:18:10.160 --> 0:18:12.960 I mean he's describing a thing from a magical story 0:18:13.080 --> 0:18:16.080 in terms of the will of the whisp, meaning that 0:18:16.200 --> 0:18:18.200 the will of the wisp must have been a thing 0:18:18.400 --> 0:18:22.280 that people were so intimately familiar with it could be 0:18:22.440 --> 0:18:26.240 used as a reference point. Yes, Yeah, And I would 0:18:26.680 --> 0:18:29.119 think for modern people, you'd you'd be more likely to 0:18:29.160 --> 0:18:31.080 go the other way, like you'd compare the will of 0:18:31.119 --> 0:18:33.600 the Whisp to something in the Bible that people might 0:18:33.640 --> 0:18:37.000 be more familiar with. But he goes the other way around, Yeah, 0:18:37.119 --> 0:18:39.359 as if to say, this is the thing that the 0:18:39.440 --> 0:18:42.080 average reader will have a familiarity with and then can 0:18:42.119 --> 0:18:45.280 therefore use as a reference point for this mythic thing. Yeah. 0:18:45.280 --> 0:18:48.119 But of course it's not just the stuff of fairy 0:18:48.119 --> 0:18:53.000 tales and an ancient literature and fiction imagical storytelling. There 0:18:53.040 --> 0:18:57.840 are many like sober secular accounts of the ignis fatuous 0:18:58.480 --> 0:19:01.760 or the will of the Whisp throughout world literature, including 0:19:01.800 --> 0:19:06.320 scientific literature. For example, Isaac Newton mentions the world whisp 0:19:06.400 --> 0:19:09.560 as if it were a commonplace occurrence in his third 0:19:09.600 --> 0:19:13.119 book of optics. He says, the ignis fatuous is a 0:19:13.240 --> 0:19:16.439 vapor shining without heat, and is there not the same 0:19:16.520 --> 0:19:20.399 difference between this vapor and flame as between rotten wood 0:19:20.520 --> 0:19:25.480 shining without heat and burning coals of fire? Which is 0:19:25.520 --> 0:19:29.480 interesting because their newton is attempting to distinguish actual physical 0:19:29.560 --> 0:19:33.720 characteristics of the ignis fatuous, like it's not like flame 0:19:33.800 --> 0:19:37.159 because it lacks heat. So yeah, you'd get pretty often 0:19:37.240 --> 0:19:42.240 people making sort of secular material physical observations of these things, 0:19:42.320 --> 0:19:44.359 as if it's just a phenomenon that they were trying 0:19:44.359 --> 0:19:47.119 to catalog and understand. So very often you'd hear about 0:19:47.160 --> 0:19:50.439 this this sort of hovering blue flame near the ground. 0:19:50.880 --> 0:19:53.440 But some accounts differ that there are other types of 0:19:53.480 --> 0:19:57.120 appearances that people also categorized as well. The whisp one 0:19:57.240 --> 0:20:00.920 comes from a first stand account by the English folklorist 0:20:01.040 --> 0:20:04.360 Jabez Allies. I wonder if I'm saying that name right, 0:20:04.400 --> 0:20:07.560 But he had a treatise called Ignis Fatuous or Will 0:20:07.640 --> 0:20:10.920 of the Wisp and the Fairies from eighteen forty six, 0:20:11.480 --> 0:20:13.400 and I'm just going to read a piece of this. 0:20:13.880 --> 0:20:16.199 In this story, he gives about how he witnessed the 0:20:16.200 --> 0:20:20.280 will of the wisp one night, he says, sometimes it 0:20:20.359 --> 0:20:22.640 was only like a flash in the pan on the ground. 0:20:22.920 --> 0:20:25.639 At other times it rose up several feet and fell 0:20:25.680 --> 0:20:28.639 to the earth and became extinguished. And many times it 0:20:28.680 --> 0:20:32.920 proceeded horizontally from fifty to one yards in an undulating 0:20:32.920 --> 0:20:36.800 motion like the flight of the green woodpecker, and about 0:20:36.840 --> 0:20:40.120 his rapid and once or twice it proceeded with considerable 0:20:40.240 --> 0:20:43.320 rapidity in a straight line upon or close to the ground. 0:20:43.960 --> 0:20:47.040 The light of this ignis fatuous, or rather of these 0:20:47.119 --> 0:20:52.280 ignis fatui or fatui, was very clear and strong, much 0:20:52.359 --> 0:20:54.919 bluer than that of a candle, and very like that 0:20:55.000 --> 0:20:58.040 of an electric spark. And some of them looked larger 0:20:58.119 --> 0:21:01.040 and as bright as the star Syria. Of course, they 0:21:01.080 --> 0:21:04.040 look dim when seen in ground fogs, but there was 0:21:04.160 --> 0:21:07.000 not any fog on the night in question. There was, however, 0:21:07.040 --> 0:21:10.040 a muddy closeness of the atmosphere, and at the same 0:21:10.080 --> 0:21:13.520 time a considerable breeze from the southwest. These will of 0:21:13.560 --> 0:21:18.119 the whisps, which shot horizontally invariably proceeded before the wind 0:21:18.240 --> 0:21:22.920 towards the northeast. That's interesting because it's a very scientifically 0:21:22.960 --> 0:21:29.120 minded uh um and practical response to viewing this. Yeah, 0:21:29.160 --> 0:21:32.919 he's describing it in terms of electricity, uh, describing the 0:21:32.960 --> 0:21:36.280 color and sort of the position and the motion and 0:21:36.359 --> 0:21:39.080 speed of motion, and then explaining that it follows the 0:21:39.119 --> 0:21:41.919 pattern of the wind. Yeah. And I but I do 0:21:42.040 --> 0:21:44.280 love the fact that he's he's really standing back and 0:21:44.720 --> 0:21:47.679 taking a serious, calm approach to it because one of 0:21:47.680 --> 0:21:50.280 the accounts that I was looking at an earlier account 0:21:50.320 --> 0:21:56.760 from traveling German lawyer Hintsner Paul Hertzner, who wrote about 0:21:56.760 --> 0:22:00.399 his travels in England, and he wrote the following about 0:22:00.400 --> 0:22:03.280 a journey from Canterbury to Dover. He said, quote, there 0:22:03.320 --> 0:22:06.400 were a great many jack o lanterns, so that we 0:22:06.400 --> 0:22:10.439 were quite seized with horror and amazement. Um. And of 0:22:10.480 --> 0:22:13.560 course if you're seized with horror and amazement, you get 0:22:13.560 --> 0:22:15.960 into that whole realm of like what am I perceiving? 0:22:16.000 --> 0:22:18.239 How is my mind perceiving it? And then how am 0:22:18.280 --> 0:22:20.760 I recalling that memory and altering it? I mean, the 0:22:21.040 --> 0:22:26.440 you know, part and partial to any paranormal experience where 0:22:26.920 --> 0:22:31.560 the experience is valid, but they're varying mental factors that 0:22:31.600 --> 0:22:33.760 are going to play into your interpretation of the event, 0:22:33.800 --> 0:22:37.760 particularly if Englishmen have been telling you tales of the 0:22:37.800 --> 0:22:40.520 strange lights in the in the in the swamp lands 0:22:40.560 --> 0:22:43.360 and what they represent. Yeah, And of course everybody's got 0:22:43.400 --> 0:22:47.320 an interpretive framework that they bring to seeing things like this, 0:22:47.440 --> 0:22:50.280 Like I'm sure that our German traveler friend brought a 0:22:50.480 --> 0:22:53.760 magical interpretive lens to it, saying there's a spirit out here. 0:22:53.800 --> 0:22:57.120