Will o' the Wisp

  The Will o' the Wisp is an interesting thing to study, possibly a ghost or a fairy from one view and a swamp phenomena by another, one that may be explained by scientific means but whose folklore persists. There is debate even today about whether the Will o' the Wisp is supernatural or a natural occurrence and explanations for it include both optical illusions as well as spontaneous ignition of swamp gasses. There is also a rich array of folklore around it which offers many explanations of it from that viewpoints as well as stories of dealing with it

In recent times it has become less common for people to see Will o' the Wisps, and many accept the scientific explanation although science itself has never been able to reproduce or measure them successfully. When the phenomena appears it can be as small as a candle flame or as large as a torch, pale or bright, and the light will reflect off of nearby objects (Sanford, 1919). Colors can vary and may include green or white and the phenomena has been seen passing through windows and doors and inside buildings although it is most commonly seen over or near water, particularly swamps. Explanations for what causes it include bioluminscent plants and animals, gases given off in the process of decay, and bubbles of plasma, although no single theory can or has been proven (Drudge, 2016).

In folklore the Will o' the Wisp has many different names which are indicative of the folklore attached to it. The common name of Ignis Fatuus is Latin for 'fool fire'. It is also known variously as Bill-with-the-wisp, Hobbledy's Lantern, Jack-a-lantern, Jenny-with-the-lantern, Jenny-burnt-tail, Peg-a-lantern, Joan-in-the-wad, Kit-in-the-stick or Kitty-candlestick, Kitty-with-the-wisp, the Lanternman, Pinket, Friar Rush, Gyl Burnt-Taylf, Hinky punk, and Hobby Lantern (Briggs, 1976). It's possible that like so many other types of fairies we are not looking at one specific being but rather a range of beings who all fall under the umbrella term of 'Will o' the Wisp' because of how they appear and what they do. In that case any being who shows up in the dark of night bearing a light to mislead travellers could be called a Will o' the Wisp even if we also know it as another distinct being such as the Pwca.

The nature of the Will'o'the'Wisp can be either mischievous or malicious depending and they have been known to both lead travellers harmlessly astray and also to lead them to their deaths. They do this by appearing as lights in front of lost travellers; as the traveller follows the light the light moves and leads them astray. In the case of the mischievous spirits this may mean into a ditch or in circles but for the dangerous ones it could mean off a cliff or into a bog where they drown. They are also known to attack people directly in some folklore, physically chasing them, driving them mad with a touch, or causing a burning sensation on the bottoms of the feet (Ashliman, 2016).

The Will o' the Wisp is often explained as a human spirit of some sort that has been cursed to wander by night bearing a light. the purpose of this light also varies and depends often on why the spirit is cursed to wander. In some areas of Scotland it was said to be the spirit of a girl who had died and spent her afterlife searching the area near the shoreline for a plant used in dyeing cloth; and that she did so because she'd been too greedy in hoarding the dye when she was alive (Ashliman, 2016). In other stories, for example, it was someone who illegally moved boundary markers or cheated neighbors and is set to wander with a light to show where the true boundary is. In the Netherlands and parts of Germany there is a belief that Will o' the Wisps are spirits of unbaptized children who will approach people and try to lead them to water hoping to be baptized (Ashliman, 2016). They can be dealt with by either offering them baptism or throwing graveyard dirt at them.

By other accounts though the Will o' the Wisp is a fairy. In Wales both the Ellydon and Pwca take on the role of the Will o' the Wisp, leading travellers astray. Stokes describes one such incident with the Pwca here: "[A] peasant who is returning home from his work, or from a fair, when he sees a light traveling before him. Looking closer he perceives that it is carried by a dusky little figure, holding a lantern or candle at arm's length over its head. He follows it for several miles, and suddenly finds himself on the brink of a frightful precipice. From far down below, there rises to his ears the sound of a foaming torrent. At the same moment the little goblin with the lantern springs across the chasm, alighting on the opposite side; raises the light again high over its head, utters a loud and malicious laugh, blows out its candle, and disappears up the opposite hill, leaving the awestruck peasant to get home as best he can."(Stokes, 1880). In parts of Germany they are viewed as a type of gnome who can help lost travellers if petitioned to do so and paid for their help, but who will also lead astray those who annoy them (usually by seeking them out); protections against them include walking with one foot in a wheelrut (Ashliman, 2016). In another German story they are described as having wings and flying, and one appeared to attack a girl while she walked because she was singing a song which mocked the spirit (Ashliman, 2016).

There is a distinct crossover as well between the two beliefs, that the Will o' the Wisp is human spirit and that it is a fairy, which we see in many versions of the Jack o Lantern story. In that classic tale, generally viewed by folklorists to fall into the auspices of Will o' the Wisp lore, a person makes a deal with the devil but outwits him by some means and eventually finds himself turned away from both heaven and hell alike. Left to wander in the cold darkness between worlds after a time he finds a light or is given one, which he uses to light his way. In a version of the story related by Stokes in 1880 the reader is explicitly told that the man, having been turned away from both afterlives, was turned into a fairy (Stokes, 1880). This is reinforced by Danish lore which states that a Jack o Lantern is the soul of 'an unrighteous man' and that one should never call on him or point him out if you see him but that turning your cap inside out will protect against him, which is true to fairylore (Ashliman, 2016). This may reflect wider beliefs that fairies themselves are those who belong to neither heaven or hell, something we see in both narratives about the fairies origins as fallen angels and also some beliefs that relate dead humans as fairies.

The Will o' the Wisp is an intriguing and unusual fairy - or spirit - one of the few that science has sought to explain and also one of the more well documented as a phenomena. I have never seen one myself, but my husband has once in the swamp behind our home. Are they natural phenomena? Ghosts? Fairies? I think perhaps the answer is all of the above.

References
Sanford, F., (1919) Ignis Fatuus; Scientific Monthly vol 9 no 4 https://www.jstor.org/stable/6287?seq=2#page_scan_tab_contents
Briggs, K., (1976) A Dictionary of Fairies
Ashliman, D., (2016) Will-o'-the-Wisps
Sikes, W., (1880) British Goblins
Drudge, C., (2016) A New Explanation for One of the Strangest Occurrences in Nature: Ball Lightning

The Story Behind Pagan Portals Fairy Witchcraft

Every book that's written has a story about the motivation behind it's writing, and this is the story behind Pagan Portals Fairy Witchcraft.

In 2013 I was on social media one day and I stumbled across a link on a page which purported to discuss 'Faerie Witchcraft'. Clicking on it showed a convoluted and confusing hodge-podge of paragraphs that wandered between nonsensical and silly - calling the mid-winter holiday 'Nollaig' for example, which literally means Christmas in Irish, but implying it was an older and genuinely pagan name for the holiday*. It took the common modern approach of treating the fairies as a kind of hybrid between elementals and nature spirits, shoe-horned into a tight corset, and then shoved into a pagan framework. Being rather feisty myself I went back to my own social media page and ranted a bit about kids these days staying off my lawn and bemoaned the growing trend of blending this view of fairies into a pagan framework.

And then I had one of those moments that will sometimes happen, where I sensed Themselves saying to me, 'If you don't like it, do something about it.' And I stopped, sort of mid-word as I was typing on facebook and I thought about that. Because venting to my friends whenever I ran across something that seemed so offbase to me was fine but ultimately it didn't accomplish very much. The mainstream perception was still what it was. And so I started to think about what I could really do about that and the idea of a book came to me. I had written one book at that point for Moon Books so I had an idea how the process worked but I was uncertain about writing anything about Themselves and also nervous about writing anything about my own personal style of witchcraft. It was one thing after all to write about my spirituality in a more general sense or to write about the theory of things and another entirely to write about how I actually did things myself.

Nonetheless the idea wouldn't go away and I kept feeling pushed to do it. I felt like it was something that the Good People wanted, as trite as that may sound, to have that option out there for people seeking to connect to them from a neopagan framework. There were a few things in print but they inevitably were separated from the root cultures in important ways**, usually through the addition to different degrees of ceremonial magic or Kabbalah. My own focus was on the Fairy Faith without that overlay, and with my pagan religion as a base instead of Catholicism. That made it something different from what I was seeing elsewhere, and that difference had its value.

So I decided to write the book as a Pagan Portal, a very basic introductory text. It would give people the idea of what was possible and a direction to go in if it interested them. It would put the option out there. I really struggled over calling it Fairy Witchcraft though, as I am not personally a fan of the 'f' word however I eventually acknowledged that to reach the people who were looking for it meant it needed a very clear and obvious name. So subtlety went out the window for the sake of a clear message. I rather think that amuses Them actually and I definitely felt like they were encouraging that name as well.

And as it turns out that voice telling me to 'do something about it' was right, or at least correct in that there was a need for it. Certainly people seem to find something meaningful in it and the Pagan Portal was followed up by a full length in depth book, with a third book coming out next year. In the end I am glad I listened, and glad I took that chance - and very glad Moon books took a chance on me.



*spoiler alert - Nollaig is from the Old Irish notlaic which in turn was borrowed from the Latin natalicia - 'birthday'
**I'm not judging that by the way, just saying that it takes the beliefs in a different direction from the folk beliefs of a hundred or two hundred years ago, which were more what I was working from. Obviously I add in neopagan influences to evolve things in a unique direction.

How I Became an Author

I was asked the other day to share the story of how I became an author, so today that's what I'm going to talk about.

I'll be the first person to admit I never thought this is what I'd be doing at this point in my life, although I can't say its entirely a shock either. When I was in high school I co-wrote an unfinished book with a friend and I was always writing poetry. But it's also true that writing and reading have never come easily for me and the idea of making a career of it wouldn't have been my first thought.

I am severely dyslexic as well as dyscalculaic; I didn't learn to read until I was in second grade, after years of special classes. It would be fair to say that my initial experience with the public school system was difficult and there were other bumps in the road as I went along. Once I did learn to read I very much enjoyed the ability to lose myself in other worlds and to learn from diverse sources, but writing, particularly spelling, never ceased to be a challenge. I don't know how to explain what its like to someone who isn't dyslexic but part of the challenge is that when I make an error no matter how many times I re-read the sentence or word I may not see the mistake. The only way I know to compensate for this issue is to proof read everything dozens of times (including books) and even then there will still be mistakes in them.

So perhaps you can see why if you'd asked me years ago if I thought I'd ever be an author I would have said no. Its not that I didn't think I could tell a good story or had anything valuable to say, but I am aware of the learning disability that I live with and how it effects my ability to communicate in writing.

Two things happened though which set me on the path of public writing. Firstly I was in a position where I was not writing everything by hand anymore (which I had done previously) and instead I was typing on a computer which offered spellcheck services that helped me greatly. Secondly I was a member of a Druid Order in the late 2000's which required dedicants to complete a project to become Druids. My project was to repaganize sections of the Carmina Gadelica, and my mentor for the project, Ellen Evert Hopman, suggested that the finished project would be valuable to put out as a book so that other people could also use it. I had never thought to do something like that before but self-publishing at that point in time made it feasible. And so I did it, realising a small book of repaganized prayers. I was so inspired by the project itself that I went on to do another selection from the same source this time aimed at charms as well as prayers; this was also released as a small book and then the two were combined into an omnibus edition.

I was emboldened by this writing success to begin a blog, this blog, as a resource for the community. I envisioned it as a place to share research I was doing and to offer good sources for people as well as just to share my thoughts on things. Its undergone different changes over the last 6 years, but I do hope that it has at least provided a resource for people, if nothing else.

In all honesty that probably would have been the end of it  - I had no further ambition beyond occasionally submitting poetry to magazines or anthologies - but shortly afterwards I was approached by small publisher through a friend because they were looking for someone to write a children's book on the Fairy Faith. It was my first publishing contract for a book. Not too long after that I had the idea, inspired by a book by Cat Treadwell, to use my blog material as the basis for a book. I put it all together and submitted it to a newer (at the time) imprint called Moon Books. Why Moon? Several reasons, including that I had friends who wrote for them at the time and that I liked the ease of their submission process online. My first full length non-fiction book came out of that, Where the Hawthorn Grows, which is a look at my thoughts on Druidism* and being a Druid in America. From there of course I have written other titles for Moon, and I found that I not only enjoyed writing but seemed to be good at it. I currently have seven books out with Moon, two more forthcoming in the next six months and three more under contract.

Once again though, it probably would have stayed with non-fiction if not for another friend and a conversation. I hadn't written fiction since high school but I had seen several friends on social media talking about doing National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo or NaNo) in November and I kept thinking it looked like fun. I am always coming up with stories in my head but I had never written any of them down, at least not since the 90's. But I was talking with my friend Catherine Kane in 2012 about a NaNo project she was doing that ended up as a published novel 'The Land that Lies Between'** and when I mentioned having some NaNo envy she strongly urged me to try participating just for fun. In 2013 I did give it a try and I quickly realized that I genuinely love writing fiction, specifically urban fantasy, and to my surprise what was supposed to be a project just for fun took on a life of its own. I had taken to posting little plot summaries and word counts on my social media as a motivator to hit my goal and 'win' NaNo and I had several people asking me when they could read the finished book. This led to a brief attempt to find an agent (lots of very polite responses saying they liked it but weren't interested) and then to submit to a trade publisher. I was offered a contract on the first book, but I decided to self publish because they wanted me to re-write something in the book which was intentionally being left a mystery and because I knew at that point it was meant to be at least a trilogy and I was afraid if it didn't sell well the other books wouldn't see print. I am really glad I chose to self publish my fiction as its given me the freedom to write the series up to book #6 and to release new books on my own schedule.

I never planned to be an author but writing is something I really enjoy doing. I seem to be reasonably good at it, and I hope that my work on both my blogs and my books has been useful to people. I used to say, after each book, that I felt like that would be my last one and I wouldn't write anything else but I think at this point I will write until I feel like I have nothing else to add and no more stories to tell.


*I don't actually consider myself a Druid anymore, as my path has diverged from there and returned to focusing solely on witchcraft, however I will say that I still think Hawthorn is a good book.
**I highly recommend it by the way if you enjoy urban fantasy that is light and fun to read.