Wraith

The apparition or double of a living person, generally supposed to be an omen of death. The wraith closely resembles its prototype in the flesh, even to details of dress. There are accounts of people seeing their own wraith, and among those who were warned of approaching death in this way are said to be Queen Elizabeth I, the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Catherine of Russia. The latter, seeing her double seated upon the throne, ordered her guards to fire upon it.

But wraiths of others may appear to one or more persons. Lord Balcarres of Scotland saw the wraith of his friend "Bonnie Dundee" at the moment when the latter fell at the Battle of Killiecrankie, and the poet Ben Jonson saw his eldest son's double when the original was dying of the plague.

The belief in the wraith flourishes in Europe, and in different parts of Britain it goes under different names, such as "waff," "swarth," "task," and "fye." Variants are the Irish " fetch, " and the Welsh "lledrith."

In Scotland it was believed that the wraith of one about to die might be seen wrapped in a shroud. The higher the shroud reached, the nearer was the approach of death.

Something analogous to wraith-seeing comes within the scope of modern psychical science, and the apparition is explained in various ways, as an astral projection or an emanation from the person of its living prototype.

A well-known case is that of the Birkbeck Ghost, when three children witnessed the apparition of their mother shortly before her death. This instance, reported in Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research (vol. 1, 1882, pp. 121-122), is noteworthy because Mrs. Birkbeck was conscious before she died of having spent the time with her children.

(See also J. W. Goethe ; Vardo/gr )

wraith / rā[unvoicedth]/ • n. a ghost or ghostlike image of someone, esp. one seen shortly before or after their death. ∎  used in similes and metaphors to describe a pale, thin, or insubstantial person or thing: heart attacks had reduced his mother to a wraith. ∎ poetic/lit. a wisp or faint trace of something: a sea breeze was sending a gray wraith of smoke up the slopes.DERIVATIVES: wraith·like / -ˌlīk/ adj.

wraith XVI (orig. Sc.). of unkn. orig.