Wight - in Literature and Culture

In Literature and 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 had swonken al the longe nyght, And seyde, 'Fare weel, Malyne, sweete wight!'"

• Geoffrey Chaucer (1368–1372), The Monk's Tale, line 380:

  "She kept her maidenhead from every wight, And unto no man would she yield her hand.."

• Geoffrey Chaucer (1368–1372), The Book of the Duchess, line 579:

  "Worste of alle wightes."

• Geoffrey Chaucer (1368–1372), Prologue of The Knight, line 72-73:

  "In all his life, to whatsoever wight.

  He was a truly perfect, gentle knight."

• Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1379-1380), The House of Fame, line 1830-1831:

  "We ben shrewes, every wight,

  And han delyt in wikkednes."

• 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."

• William Shakespeare (c. 1602), The Merry Wives of Windsor, Act I, Sc. III:

  "O base Hungarian wight! wilt thou the spigot wield?

• William Shakespeare (c. 1603), Othello, Act II, Sc. I:

  "She was a wight, if ever such wight were"

• John Milton (1626), On the Death of a Fair Infant Dying of a Cough, verse vi:

  "Oh say me true if thou wert mortal wight..."

• 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."

• TSR (1974) Dungeons & Dragons "white box" set

  The wight was described as being able to drain away energy levels on a touch.

• Ubisoft (2006) Heroes of Might and Magic 5

  In the game wights are the 6th tier creature to the Necropolis faction. They have high health and attack points and even have an ability called Harm Touch where they can attack and kill at least 1 enemy every time with no retaliation.

• George R. R. Martin, A Song of Ice and Fire series, Book I A Game of Thrones (1996):

  "When he opened his mouth to scream, the wight jammed its black corpse fingers into Jon's mouth."

• George R. R. Martin, A Song of Ice and Fire series, Book IV A Feast for Crows (2005):

  "Who has been beyond the wall of death to see? Only the wights, and we know what they are like. We know."

• Boris Sagal, The Omega Man

  The 'nocturnals' of Sagal's 1971 motion picture The Omega Man could be considered a filmic example of the wight.

• Ransom Riggs,Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children

  "I can imagine a wight faking it."