In literature, Will o' the wisp sometimes has a metaphorical meaning, describing a hope or goal that leads one on but is impossible to reach, or something one finds sinister and confounding.[32]
In Book IX of John Milton's Paradise Lost, Satan is compared to a "will-o-the-wisp" in tempting of Eve to partake of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of good and evil:
Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner describes the Will o' the wisp.[33][...] He, leading, swiftly rolled
In tangles, and made intricate seem straight,
To mischief swift. Hope elevates, and joy
Brightens his crest; as when a wandering fire,
Compact of unctuous vapour, which the night
Condenses, and the cold environs round,
Kindled through agitation to a flame,
Which oft, they say, some evil Spirit attends,
Hovering and blazing with delusive light,
Misleads the amazed night-wanderer from his way
To bogs and mires, and oft through pond or pool;
There swallowed up and lost, from succour far.—9.631-642
Two Will-o-the-wisps appear in Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's fairy tale The Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily (1795). They are described as lights which consume gold, and are capable of shaking gold pieces again from themselves.[34]
It is seen in Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre when Jane Eyre is unsure if it is a candle or a Will-o-the-wisp.
"Mother Carey" wrote a popular 19th century poem titled "Will-O'-The-Wisp".
The Will o' the wisp makes an appearance in the first chapter of Bram Stoker's Dracula, as the Count, masquerading as his own coach driver, takes Jonathan Harker to his castle in the night. The following night, when Harker asks Dracula about the lights, the Count makes reference to a common folk belief about the phenomenon by saying that they mark where treasure is buried.[35]
In J. R. R. Tolkien's work The Lord of the Rings, will o' the wisps are present in the Dead Marshes outside of Mordor. When Frodo Baggins and Samwise Gamgee make their way through the bogs the spindly creature Gollum tells them "not to follow the lights" meaning the will o' the wisps. He tells them that if they do, they will keep the dead company and have little candles of their own. Also, Gandalf guides the Fellowship through the darkness of Moria (A Journey in the Dark) and his "wizard's light" is compared to a will-o'-the-wisp. Given that Moria was an ancient source of mithril, this might be a nod to Scandinavian associations of the will-o'-the-wisp with treasure.
The hinkypunk, the name for a Will o' the wisp in South West England has achieved fame as a magical beast in JK Rowling's Harry Potter series. In the books, a hinkypunk is a one-legged, frail-looking creature that appears to be made of smoke. It is said to carry a lantern and mislead travelers.
The children's fantasy series "The Spiderwick Chronicles", by Holly Black and Tony DiTerlizzi, includes will o'the wisps; they are listed in "Arthur Spiderwick's Guide to the Fantastical World Around You." In the series, Will O' The Wisps are described as fat fireflies that lead travellers astray.
It is mentioned by Sherlock Holmes in Doyle's "The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet"
The German fantasy novel by Michael Ende The Neverending Story (German: Die unendliche Geschichte 1979 and Ralph Manheim's English translation 1983) begins in Fantastica, when a will-o'-the-wisp goes to ask the Childlike Empress for help against the Nothing, which is spreading over the land. The film based on the book does not contain the Will -o'-the-wisp.
In Italo Calvino's novella, The Cloven Viscount, the narrator describes assisting Dr. Trelawney, a doctor-cum-amateur-scientist, in his hunt for will-o'-the-wisps in cemeteries. Calvino implies a connection between the number of fresh corpses in a graveyard and the frequency of will-o'-the-wisps.
In Julie Kagawa's Iron Fey series, will-o'-the-wisps are very commom creatures in the land of Faery, and are meant to mislead travellers.
In Edgar Allan Poe's short story " The Man Of The Crowd", a dishevelled old 'man' occupies a Will-o'-the-Wisp type role in leading the narrator through the streets of London.
Eino Leino's poem "Nocturne" has a line "I'll no longer chase the will-o'-the-wisp".
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