What’s in a Name?
The origins of the "GossamerWight" name.
What’s in a name?
Well, a good deal, in fact. We decided that GossamerWight—a neologistic hopeful – was to be one word, with the ‘W’ also capitalised.
Let’s break the word GossamerWight into two parts to consider the etymology of our creation.
‘Gossamer’ is a word well known to many. The common usage is for something that is light, sheer, or delicate (like butterfly wings) or, of course, a fabric. Perhaps a fabric like chiffon – the sheer, lightweight, elegant, airy, and ethereal choice for many wedding gowns.1 One might even say that such an ethereal fabric appears to have a ghost-like quality in certain lights. This makes the word ‘Gossamer’ a fitting prefix for our literary magazine name, in that part of our focus is to showcase content that is both supernatural and spectral... ghostly.
Which brings us seamlessly to the second part of the word GossamerWight – the suffix ‘wight.’ As a noun, the word has several meanings, but for our purpose it refers to a living being or creature... or not, because the word might also denote a supernatural being of some kind, which fits our usage of the word. As a literary word, ‘wight’ might refer, then, to a ghost; or a dead person reanimated, such as a Lazarus figure – although rather than biblical, such a being would undoubtedly be more vampiric or ghoulish! One also thinks of J. R. R. Tolkien’s wraith-like creatures, the barrow-wights, in The Lord of the Rings.
Configured as it is, the word GossamerWight appears both familiar and unfamiliar at once, causing an ambiguity of construction that gives it an air of the uncanny. Now, that is fitting for our literary magazine! We hope you’ll agree that the name GossamerWight stands out – it’s elegant, eerie, atmospheric, old-world, and most importantly, memorable. And while GossamerWight Literary Magazine’s interests include wraithlike supernatural beings and haunting tales, the focus is much broader, of course, as the introduction to our About page shows. So, whether your primary interests are in horror, the weird, the speculative, dystopia, or fantasy, we hope you’ll feel at home with us.
[We debated whether we ought to explain something of the arachnid connection to the word ‘Gossamer,’ but decided we would leave that for you to discover.]
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