Wight

For other uses, see Wight (disambiguation).
Wight
Grouping Legendary creature
Sub grouping Undead
Similar creatures Ghost
Country England

Wight is a Middle English word, from Old English wiht, and used to describe a creature or living sentient being. It is akin to Old High German wiht, meaning a creature or thing.[1][2] In its original usage the word wight described a living human being.[3] More recently, the word has been used within the fantasy genre of literature to describe undead or wraith-like creatures: corpses with a part of their decayed soul still in residence, often draining life from their victims. The earliest example of this usage in English is in William Morris's translation of the Grettis Saga, where draug is translated as "barrow wight". Notable later examples include the undead Barrow-wights from the works of J. R. R. Tolkien and the level-draining wights of Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game.

In popular culture

Examples of the word used in classic English literature and poetry

  • Geoffrey Chaucer (1368-1372), The Reeve's Tale, line 4236, The Riverside Chaucer (3rd edition):
    "For [Aleyn] had swonken al the longe nyght, And seyde, 'Fare weel, Malyne, sweete wight!'"
  • Edmund Spenser (1590–1596), The Faerie Queene, I.i.6.8-9:
    "That every wight to shrowd it did constrain,
    And this fair couple eke to shroud themselues were fain."
  • Washington Irving (1820), The Legend of Sleepy Hollow:
    "In this by-place of nature there abode, in a remote period of American history, that is to say, some thirty years since, a worthy wight of the name of Ichabod Crane, who sojourned, or, as he expressed it, "tarried," in Sleepy Hollow, for the purpose of instructing the children of the vicinity."
  • George Gordon, Lord Byron (1812-1816), Childe Harolds' Pilgrimage Canto 1, verse :
    Ah, me! in sooth he was a shamles wight ..." .
  • Edwin Greenslade Murphy (1926), "Wot Won the Larst?", in Dryblower’s Verses:
    From weedy little wights whose cigarettes
    Recall a badly-disinfected drain
  • Boris Sagal (1971), The Omega Man:
    The 'nocturnals' of Sagal's 1971 motion picture The Omega Man could be considered a filmic example of the wight.

See also

References

  1. Merriam-Webster, 1974.
  2. T. F. HOAD. "wight". The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology. 1996. Retrieved May 19, 2010 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O27-wight.html
  3. Wight, in the Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, 1974 edition.
  4. Gygax, Gary, and Dave Arneson. Dungeons & Dragons (3-Volume Set) (TSR, 1974)
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