1. Animistic Essence

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• Wights embody the life force present in ancestors, animals, natural elements, landscapes, celestial bodies, and non-physical entities. They are not deities but vital presences within existence. They can also represent the spiritual essence of natural phenomena, ancestors, and abstract forces. Though not always gods, they possess awe-inspiring or sacred qualities.

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2. Localized Influence

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• Wights may become tied to specific places (forests, rivers, mountains) and exert influence within the Drikeyu, requiring respect to avoid hostility. Some are considered to reside in sacred locations (shrines, trees, stones), influencing their surroundings. Rituals and offerings are performed to ensure harmony and prevent misfortune.

 

3. Positive & Negative Potential

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• Wights reflect human-like duality, capable of being helpful or harmful depending on treatment while others are simply more prone to  hostility towards others, including humans. Many are considered able to bestow blessings (protection, prosperity) or curses (disasters, illness) based on human actions such as neglect or disrespect. They also adapt independently as well as along side human culture as a sort of evolution of their own.

 

Differences

 

For the most part, the apparent differences are only superficial as far as the specific cultural developments over time and their various independent formation of concepts and shared cross cultural contributions, yet are mentioned for clarification within regards to cultural perceptions.

 

1. Cosmological Framework

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• Wights exist within the Drikeyu, which governs all entities equally, ensuring balance between cosmic laws, dynamics, and essence. They are subject to the same order as humans, animals, and natural forces, rather than being outside or above it.

 

2. Cultural Expression

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• Wights are expressed across cultures with diverse linguistic and artistic representations, but they all share the same animistic foundation. Many try applying or giving them a formalized structure that wights do not necessarily follow. It was also part of related cultures the basic belief that it is important for humans to cultivate good relationships with them, since they had power over the natural forces of particular locations and animals under their care in those locations, and could cause both good and bad results and otherwise help or harm humans who interfered with the places and creatures under their watch.

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3. Role of Ancestors

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• Wights encompass individual ancestors, rulers, and cultural figures, continuing their life essence beyond death. All beings inherently possess this essence, making honoring of ancestor central in wight traditions that can include focus extending beyond human ancestry to broader divine forces. This includes, but not limited to, those considered to be "holy or hallowed ones, and such holiness did not come from some sense of perfection but for the efforts they made or make in bringing peace, health and overall well being for all people and the world in which we exist.

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4. Abstract Concepts

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• Wights explicitly include ineffable, abstract forms that resist precise articulation, reflecting philosophical recognition of existence beyond language.

• While they can also embody spiritual forces or influences some, but not all, are often considered connected to physical manifestations such as natural things as stones and locations to human crafted objects or structures, being less abstract and more concrete in concept.

• This means they are an expression of a far more diverse fluid spiritual hierarchy, though one can argue the mundane concept of a hierarchy can also be misleading or over emphasized. 

 

When Wights also Include the concept of Ghosts

 

The most common symbol associated with the ghost is that of the five-pointed star pattern and the strs of the night sky associated with the ancestors. This basic concept is also the basis behind the proper meaning and position of such 'pentagrams' and pentacles (pentagram in a circle).

 

The upright is the most common one representing ascension to the sky after death, while the inverted actually represented birth or incarnation. This is also based on the observation that in most cases when someone dies, they are more often face up to the sky, while during the birthing process, the head is pointed downward. This also is the basis behind the star as an abstract symbol of the individual with the points, including the center, expressing aspects of the individual. 

 

The Six Aspects (Technically 12) of the Ghost

 

The concept of the ghost body acknowledges the continuation of existence beyond the physical, extending beyond the common "five souls" model by recognizing the center, making six core aspects, plus the flesh body in life and the ghost body in the afterlife, totaling seven. These aspects define an entity’s individuality and presence, both in life and beyond:

 

• Mind & Memories – The cognitive repository of experience.

• Individual Personality & Self – The unique traits that define identity.

• Will & Temperament – The guiding force behind intention and action.

• Name & Identity – The symbolic representation of existence.

• Feelings & Emotions – The essence of bonds and connection.

• Vitality & Life Essence – The core energy that sustains being.

 

The Spiritual Body & Its Representation

 

The spiritual body is often depicted as a shadow or image, reflecting the shape and presence of the individual. In modern terms, one may consider defining at least some of them as electro-magnetic wave patterns. Many cultures created figurines or statues as vessels for souls, serving as abodes for wights and spirits. Damaging these figures required ritual repairs or replacements, ensuring the soul’s transition, while destruction or removal of names banished the ghost, leading to a "second death."

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Treating Spirits with Respect

 

Ghosts, much like the living, should be treated with dignity. Rather than assuming all ghosts are bound to locations, consider:

 

• Many spirits choose to appear at different places.

• Some remain curious about the living world, observing changes.

• A few may be territorial, but this mirrors human behavior.

• Encounters should be approached with reverence, not provocation.

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​Yes, they have distinctly male or female genders

 

Contrary to later theological claims that spiritual entities are androgynous or genderless “pure intellects,” ancient texts and traditions consistently depict them as possessing distinct biological and gendered traits. These entities—commonly referred to as wights—are not abstract ideals but living essences with functional attributes, appearances, and roles that mirror the diversity found across species. How one chooses to engage or honor these entities is a personal matter, but any framework that denies their structural diversity is not historically accurate—it is ideological revision. Wights are not to be equated as mere ideas. They are entities and the essences of entities. Our "feelings" about such are irrelevant. We can, as shown in the section on deities, brake these down to five primary expressions:

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1. Sexless (no gender)

2. Male

3. Female

4. Asexual (both genders)

5. Hermaphrodite (both genders)

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Entities associated with the ability to swap gender are considered a form of hermaphrodite while a genderless being is often represented as able to assume the forms or likenesses of the other four classifications. It must also be understood these are not more than two base genders of male or female and the genderless, but rather a spectrum of forms suited to their particular contributions within the ecology and dynamics of life and spiritual realities. Wights are not uniform—they are species-level diverse, and their gendered or non-gendered states are part of their natures that parallel physical or biological counterparts. 

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Sexual Orientation (Only 3)

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In addition one cannot confuse these forms with the only three actual sexual orientations of the heterosexual which means sexual drives and reproductive urges with those of the opposite gender of their own and produces, homosexual urges which means sexual drives direct to those of the same gender which produces no offspring, and the bisexual meaning sexual urges directed towards both the same and opposite gender that still only procreates with the  opposite gender but is factually impossible for those of the same genders.  

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"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

 

William Shakespeare's play, Hamlet, Act I, Scene 5.

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Contrary to what many will tend to proclaim on one hand or try and overly integrate on the other, regardless what names are given and remembered or have long since been forgotten and lost to time with cultures and civilizations we will never truly know about, much less the belief specifics therein, there is always an undercurrent of recognition there are a variety of creatures generally beyond human perception, that are as diverse, or more diverse than life we know of, and diverse cultures have developed a variety of ways of interacting, working, or dealing with the world over and that nothing is all good, all evil or neutral. Simply put, its complicated but the basics remain for the most part the same. 

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COMMON CHARACTERS WHOSE ETYMOLOGY HAS BEEN SUPPRESSED

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Controversy is merely the expression of of suborn ignorance to remain willfully stupid so as to refuse to let go of proven falsehoods and rejection of objective truth over subjective opinion and/or experience. As should be comprehended of you have made it to this page you will be well aware there is no fear to challenge what is claimed and reject definitions by association while rejecting those who cannot accept and seek to suppress inconvenient truth. That said, read, learn and do your own deeper dive into such research. You will find on the deeper side of things, this is true. 

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Aesir: The oldest source of the singular Aes to the plural Aesir is actually from aise, the Norman Frankish word source of Ease. its base meaning is not god, deity or anything of the sourt. It means to "help, comfort, please, and even opportunity and also has a sense of well-being such as "being at ease" as in relaxed. It is as such it should come as no surprise that 'ais' has its direct link to the Etruscans in the plural aisar / eisar with the same base meaning and applied as such in later invented lore by the 12th to 13th centuries. When applied to so called Celtic concepts, as the "Light and Dark Courts" of the so called Aos sí that comes directly from the Etruscan derived aiser si (light court) and aiser seu (dark court). One only has to then look into what is known pertaining to the Estrucan aisar / eisar / eiser.

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Banshee: Banshee is a later spelling derived from bean sí where in Irish bean mean woman/lady, but we can then go back to the previous examples aiser si (light court)  which is in fact persevered In Old Irish as áes síde being the same word. In Latin we find si is rendered as see, which is well known to come from Latin word sedes, meaning "seat" and likewise in Old Saxon as sidu, and sida, etc. So the meaning would more literally mean in Banshee as Seated Lady or "Lady of Place" since the word seat itself has the connotation of sit, or place, and even establish. It is properly context based.  Lore wise they announced the death of someone as wailing women, a very old tradition of mourning the departed, especially a ruler, leader of someone of particular importance to the people. It has been twisted into the claim the wailing "causes" the demise of someone. In reality it was a way to honor someone. 

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Draugr: The oldest source of Draug is the same as Drag. it is likewise related to dragan "to draw, drag" which is the source of dragon despite many "objections" to this fact. When used in reference to a reanimated corpse, it is not uncommon for such an entity to also be described as "taking on the form of a dragon since both are associated with graves, burial mounds, caverns, catacombs and ancient offerings as "burial hordes" they guard jealously. The oldest recorded sense besides that of "pulling" is of "drinking" such as in draught, and akin to drought and offerings of drinks as part of old customs honoring the dead in which some of a drink is poured on a grave or the ground and then some is consumed by the participants as a type of communion. One can also see its also connected to the word drug in reference to some sort of intoxicant and also with a hallucination. Ghost is a later association with a Draug. If one reads a lot of old lore, such "draugs" are well known to take on the form of "dragons" and often a dragon is used as a royal symbol. 

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Dwarf: The oldest source of the word Dwarf is actually duerg. It’s a compound of du + erg with the base meaning of "do work and to work" and can also mean 'the worker" and akin to the word demi-urge as "secondary worker." It has nothing to do with any sort of context meaning a diminutive size. In any case this association with working has to do with manual labor and part of the reason why Dwarves still retain in concept the association with "working in pits and mines and caves, as well as crafting tools and weapons, among other things.

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Elf: The oldest source of Elf is actually Ulf which is the same source as wolf. These include such as ulf, alf, olf, ulv, alv, olv, and included the 'w' as wulf, wolf, walf to name but a few of these variations. There are many variations of this that one can find which also is one reason why one will often find shared characteristics of elves with wolves, and even concepts such as werewolves in older sources. The most common associations are the moon and hunting. It also all shares its form the same roots as the word wool and wooly, specifically from wulfel as wool + fell a term for a skin from which the wool/thick fur of a hide has not been sheared or pulled off. It has no connection in any case with words like alp in associated meanings such as white.

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Ettin: The oldest sources of Ettin are Iotun literally meaning Eaten and Eater. Used as a term for cannibals and cannibalism it sometimes also was applied to animals as man-eaters. Variations of this word also include eoten, etun, jötunn, jötun and the plural form such as jötnar or ettins from ettin. The association with the word for Giant is a much later addition of concepts. It’s often applied to and shares etymology with another word known as Juten or simply the Jutes. It is also sometimes applied with the same concept as Goblin, which is from the root gob meaning mouth. It’s akin to such terms as gobble (meaning to eat in a greedy or in a gluttonous manner) as well as such words as Goblet. it was and is sometimes used as an alternative word for Ettin as there is also often the association with cannibals and the act of cannibalism.

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Fylgja: The feminine form of the masculine folger, also spelled volger; the simple meaning of the word is "follower." This was not and is not in the sense of a slave or someone in blind devotion but had more of a sense as a companion, and one who attended them, often times acting as their guardian and assistant. The excessive tendency in such chases as these tend to only present the ":feminine description of such matters to the complete exclusion of the masculine due largely to excessive feminist rhetoric. In any case it was often used as a term alternative to the Latin "familiar" as a caretaker of a family and their household  but later came to be applied to "attending spirits" that were said to be able to assume the form of a person, animal or various strange hybrid forms, often seen in dreams or visions, and its presence can indicate future events, including imminent death, though not always. It became further embellished later to include the concept of one's other or double self like a sort of doppelganger. In this case it will represent the person's character and tendencies, good or bad.

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Gaint: This isn’t even an unknown one. It comes from Gigant as a short from of the plural Greek Gigantes from the base giga akin to mega, both of which are Greek and have the meaning of huge, big or large those the core meaning is actually "earth born" as in spawned directly from the ground (often associated with hills, mounds and mountains. All of this is of course is said to be pre-Greek, though giga was itself simply an old error in spelling mega.

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Ghost: The oldest source of the word ghost is gāst as a common root for both the words gust as in a sudden movement of air, and guest as someone to be treated with proper hospitality and respect. It is from the association with air or wind that it also has been used as an alternative for the word spirit which also means wind, air and also used as a term meaning breath, and also holds concepts such as a "presence" or "power" rather than the concept of personality. It’s within the concept of Ghost that the personality element is shared with the connection to guest. It didn't originally apply to but did come to include a concept of the mind, memories and personality of the dead that somehow has a continued existence after death of the base bodily form. It’s much later still that the addition concept of an apparition or appearance came into play.

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Gnome: The concept of the Gnome began with Swiss alchemist Paracelsus (1493–1541) in his writings. Paracelsus described gnomes as elemental spirits of the earth, responsible for minerals and subterranean treasures which demonstrates his more or less renaming of what has directly applied to the concepts of Dwarves. All evidence points to his derivative of the word Gnome from Latin gnomus from the Greek “gnōmē” (γνώμη), meaning thought, intelligence, or mental faculty. It is likely his concept of the merging of these ideas had to do with the skills and knowledge also attributed to Dwarves (AKA Dwarfs) and thus contributed to his concept of gnomes as earth spirits that are “intelligent beings” that understand the secrets of the earth and ultimately the workings of nature. Over time, the concept shifted in folklore and literature from a purely alchemical spirit to a small, human-like creature, often depicted as wise, mischievous, or guardians of treasures.

 

When it comes to the other "classes" of elemental beings, there is the Sylph as a likely reinvented form of Self which was in fact spelled Sylf, and likely combined with the concepts of Psyche from Greek concepts and mythology. Undine is known to come from New Latin word undīna with the context of "little wave" and linked to concepts like Mermaids or more generically Mer-Folk (water people). Finally there was Salamander, which comes from the Greek salamandra, which means "fire lizard" and reflects the belief that these amphibians could live in or were born from fire, and just as easily extinguish it. While there are various suggestions where this idea came from, they are all speculative. Oddly enough, it was also a name for an insect known as a cricket.   

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Ogre: One of the most common questions tends to be “why Ogres are always or mostly represented as green giant type characters?” It’s literally in the name. It comes from the same source as agri, agre and agro fro Greek and Latin into French ogre meaning field as in an open field of green grasses and shrubs, Sometimes this also applied to marshlands and swamps which clarifies some of the other later more fantasy based additions. It is not related to Latin Orcus which comes from Older Latin arca where the word ark comes from and means a box or chest, though it also applied to the sense of a casket holding the remains of the dead. It’s also as such the source of the noun for a type of whale known as an orca and the word arcane meaning hidden, secret and obscured.

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Troll: The oldest source of Troll is the same as Thrall with the simple and base meaning of capture and captive, though the more common sense is trap and trapper. It is akin also to trawl/trall. Trolling is a term used in such a context with fishing using "dragnets" and the term "enthrall" meaning to 'capture one's attention. It has often been confused with the source words from trail and track resulting in such as trolley being applied. Troll and Thrall also share in being used as old terms for slave and servant as someone who is taken captive and reduced to little more than cattle, and sometimes less than cattle.

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Valkyrie: The oldest source of Valkyrie and what is often claimed is simply not properly attested to linguistically and ignores the major Latin influences on such content. It is well known that F and V are often exchanged between these language roots.It is more likely with the association of Valkyries with birds, most commonly falcons and hawks. It is more likely it is rooted from Latin falx which would be rendered as Valk/Valks. It is preserved as such in Dutch as Valk and also included Valkr. The suffix -yrie is an adaptation of the general form of -yrja feminine ending used to form female names, often derived from verbs or descriptive roots. It typically marks the name as belonging to a woman or female character or creature. This simply means Valk-yrja/yrie means a female hawk. However, It is more likely still this was an inspired merging of Valk + Keres as female death-spirits in Greek mythology who personified violent death, appearing on battlefields to claim the souls of the dying, often as carrion birds picking the bones of the dead and dying. And yes,  hawks are opportunistic scavengers as much as hunters. 

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Vanir: The oldest source of the plural word Vanir is from the word vana, a shared source of vane and wane, all holding the sense of diminished, empty, and figuratively as "useless" which in turn is akin to vanus as in vanity also with the shared sense of frivolous, useless, and worthless. It has also at times been applied to the singular van simply meaning from, however, this is disproved with the "home of the Vanir" being called Vanaheim. So in simple terms it’s a non-existent invented "group" of characters as a fill in gloss over for the aiser seu as the opposites of the aiser si. This should also not be considered all that strange since such “characters” tend to exhibit such “vanities.”

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TUATHA DE DANANN (Means Land of the Danes)

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Factually the Tuatha De Danann are a remake of aisar / eisar / aesir combined with the reference to the Danes.  It does not mean "people of a goddess named Danu." The earliest versions of this claim appear in 19th‑century comparative mythology, when researcher Max Müller (1823–1900) suggested links between Celtic and Vedic traditions. Danann was used as a reference to the Danes, who were known to the Norse as Danir which was also re-imagined as the Vanir. Yes, inded Danann was the Danes and it survived as short one "n" at the end as Danan with the singular in this case being Dana = Dane, in Old English. 

 

With that broken down and when we go much further back the actual meaning of "tuatha/tuata" means region and territory, while "de" means 'of' combined with Danann meaning Danes. It originally meant the Land of the Danes proper before it came to be applied to bean Tribe of Danes and then losing the original concepts and history now fragmented is scattered myths, legends and confused concepts that are as such incoherent for the most part. This is what happens when a people become disconnected from their own lore and languages. 

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Now, many will continue to push back but the are not doing any deeper research than the lazy scholarship that simply rely on Max Müller's rhetoric and claims that cannot be substantiated. For example, there is no medieval story, prayer, invocation, litany, or theophoric name that explicitly says:

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• “Danu the goddess…”

• “The goddess Danu…”

• “We worship Danu…”

• “The mother-goddess Danu…”

• or anything equivalent.

 

The nominative “Danu” is a scholarly reconstruction centuries later. Müller and later commentators cemented this extrapolation by overlaying Indo-European parallels on weak foundations and pure speculation, and frankly a poor handling of actual linguistics as will many of the previous things that have been presented. Most secondary works simply repeat Müller’s premise without checking the medieval evidence which simply does not exist, is not attested, nor present in any literary or archeological sources. 

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Here are the actual, hard facts:

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• Danann is attested in medieval Irish.

• Danu is NOT.

• The leap from Danann → Danu is a modern linguistic assumption.

• The leap from Danu → “Celtic mother goddess tied to Indo-European Danu” is Müller’s idea, later replicated endlessly.

• Icelandic / Old Norse inflection charts that list the forms Dani / Dana / Danir / Dananna / Dananum etc., confirming the morphological reality of the -anna genitive/definite plural pattern for this stem.

• The goal is not puritanical separatist jargon → it is about accuracy and consistency.

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Old Norse (Germanic ethnonym “the Danes”):

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• Dani → singular nominative (“Dane”)

• Danir → plural nominative (“the Danes”)

• Dananna → genitive / definite plural (“of the Danes / the Danes’”)

• Dananum → dative / accusative plural

  • This would have been inherited among the Scottish and Irish to name a few as Danann

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Many will believe what they will regardless of these facts and reasonable conclusions all the same. It is their freedom to do so, however, it would seem then to be a far lesser or true connection with such matters than to strive to know the proper depths and associations of such matters as these to have a proper spiritual sense of such matters. Belief in and of itself, does not, all in all conclude and define all of reality or realities unknown.