| Wight | |
|---|---|
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Other Names |
Wight, Wicht, Wichtel |
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First Appearance |
English Folklore |
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Created by |
English Folklore |
Origin[]
Wight is a generic term used for all beings and non-beings, creatures and non-created, spiritual and physical, living and dead. This includes (but is not limited to): “gods, elves, dwarves, ettins, ghouls, humans, vampires, wanes, and zombies.” In mythical contexts, the word’s meaning is often narrowed to a specific kind of wight called dreag (which is the Anglo-Saxon equivalent of the Norse draugr), and in modern media to an advanced version of draugs. Wight is the most generic term when describing beings, deities, spirits, creatures, monsters, races, and species but is not commonly used with this meaning; because people often only use the word “wight” in Germanic contexts and for undead. The term is widely used in modern fantasy, often to mean specifically a being which is undead.
Wight is an old word used for a person of a particular kind (modern equivalents: species, race, spirit, lifeform), that applies to figures who transcend the concept of being and life such as deities and undead even if they have always existed or had created themselves. Nowadays words like “a spirit”, “a being”, and “a creature” are used like this instead of their literal meanings.
Public Domain Literary Appearances[]
All published appearances of Wights from before Janurary 1, 1929 are public domain in the US.
Some notables mentions of wights are listed below:
- The Faerie Queene, (1590–1596)
- The Merry Wives of Windsor (1602)
- Othello, (1603)
- On the Death of a Fair Infant Dying of a Cough (1626)
- Scots Metrical Psalter (1650)
- To the Daisy (1802)
- La Belle Dame Sans Merci (1820)
- The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (1820)
- Lord Byron (1812–1816)
- Princess Ida (1883)
- Wot Won the Larst? (1926)
Notes[]
- Wights are featured in J. R. R. Tolkien’s world of Middle-earth, especially in ‘’The Lord of the Rings‘’, and in George R. R. Martin’s HBO television series ‘’Game of Thrones‘’ and novel series ‘’A Song of Ice and Fire‘’.
- Since its 1974 inclusion in the RPG ‘’Dungeons & Dragons‘’ (D&D), it has become a recurring form of undead in other fantasy games and mods, such as ‘’Vampire: The Masquerade‘’.