Grim Reaper

Introduction -

With an hourglass and scythe, Grim Reaper reminds us that death ultimately comes to everyone and at the end, he comes and harvests all the unfortunate souls. The Grim Reaper reaps all the plants full of the sins committed by a human being. That's why it is called 'Grim Reaper'.

Nowadays, the Grim Reaper has become a pop culture icon and we can see it in books, shows, comics, cartoons, games, etc, in which it is considered to be a symbol of Death.

We already know who Grim Reaper is and what he does, but we don't know much about its origin.

There are many personifications of death in different cultures and myths which are mostly in the forms of God's or Goddesses.

Different cultures -

In Greek culture, we have heard the name 'Thanatos', whose literal meaning is death. 'Thanatos' is often depicted as a beautiful winged man wearing a black cloak and he holds a sword in his hand.

But later on, these depictions began to change and he was portrayed as a small winged boy, just like Cupid. He has an inverted torch in his hand which represents the extinguishing of life.

In Aztec culture, there is a goddess named, 'Mictecacihuatl', who is the Queen of the realm of the dead and she rules the afterlife with her husband, 'Mictlantecuhtli'. 'Mictecacihuatl' is represented as a fleshless body and her jaw is always open from which she swallows stars in the day.

In Hinduism and Buddhism religion, King Yama or Yamraj is mentioned as, who rides on a buffalo and holds a lasso or rope in their hands, with which they drag souls to the afterlife.

Now when Buddhism spread towards the East, the reference to King Yama also spread with it. King Yama became King Yan or Yanluo in China, and in Japan, he became King Enma.

But apart from gods and goddesses, there is another common symbol of death, a spectral figure that escorts the living souls to reach the world of death.

In some ancient Indigenous rock art, pictures of some otherworldly beings or special figures are visible, which were then considered as spirits that carried the souls in the afterlife.

In Greek myths, you must have heard the name of 'Charon', who is a hooded figure and he takes the souls of dead people in a ferry or boat to the underworld across the river Styx in exchange for a fee.

Likewise in the Korean myth, the Netherworld Emissary Jeoseung Saja is referred to as a strict bureaucrat and is busy throughout the day fulfilling the quota of collecting his souls.

Now all these personifications of death are similar to the figure of Grim Reaper. Such figures are present at the time of a death of a human and collect his soul.

But the question is, where did Grim Reaper's figure come from?

The Bible does not mention a figure like The Grim Reaper, at the least the cloaked skeleton that carries the scythe.

In Islam, the Angel of death, usually called Azrael, is very similar to the figure of the Grim Reaper. But Azrael's physical description states that he is a giant with 4,000 wings and has eyes and tongues all over his body. And as you must have understood that this description doesn't match from Grim Reaper.

In the Bible also, we are not told of any figure holding skulls, not a scythe. Another thing is that the job of the Angel of death is to kill people but Grim Reaper doesn't kill people, he just collects their souls.

Grim Reaper may be one of the four horsemen who will come during the apocalypse and are mentioned in the Book of Revelations of the Bible. The name of these four horsemen is Pestilence, War, Famine, and Death. Yup, he was the last horseman at the time of the apocalypse whose name is written. But still, there is no physical description of this horseman to which we can compare with Grim Reaper.

Interestingly, the original language of this book was Greek and Thanatos was the name of the last horsemen whose literal meaning is death, and Thanatos as we know of now is a Greek God of Death. It may be that this Biblical horseman is inspired by Thanatos, an ancient Greek god.

But I think it's possible that the figure of Grim Reaper would have originated not from the Bible but from the folklore that was popular in Europe.

'Megere Hein' has been mentioned in the Netherlands aka Beenderman or Bone-Man and its physical characteristics are very similar to that of The Grim Reaper. 'Megere Hein' is a skeletal figure who appears at the time of death and illness. But there is more such figure than this, which is very much similar to Grim Reaper.

'Ankou' is mentioned in the Celtic folklore which appears either in the form of a man or in the form of a skeleton, wearing a black cloak or robe, and also has a scythe in his hand. In some stories, Ankou is described as a shadow whose ride is a cart from where he collects the dead.

In some depictions, he wears a black robe and a hat that covers his face. Ankou is considered to be a henchman or helper of Death and his job is to protect the graveyards and collect the souls of the dead on the death's behalf. And according to a popular Christian legend, it is believed that Ankou was the first child of Adam and Eve.

Now inspired by all these figures, we have got our modern Grim Reaper figure and many people believe that this figure must have originated in the 14th century when the disease started spreading in Europe.

Origin Story -

A strange disease began to spread in Europe in 1346, which probably came from Asia. Millions of people in Europe started getting infected with this disease which is better known today by the name, "Black Death". This was the most dangerous pandemic of history and common people also started to feel that this was the end of the world. There were so many dead bodies scattered all around that they smelled very bad, so then people started putting these bodies in plague pits through carts.

From 1346 to 1353, the condition became so bad that 30 to 60% of Europe got infected which means that more than half of Europe's population was killed. Not only this, but due to Black Death, the world population decreased from 475 million to 350 million, which means that almost 25% of the human population died.

At that time, death got spread all around Europe and then the themes of the skeleton, disease, mortality, etc, also became very popular which we get to see in the art and literature of that time. At the same time, the idea of Dance of Death aka Danse Macabre originated which too became very popular.

Death became a personified figure that was present everywhere and at all the time, which neither discriminated between the rich, nor the poor, the good or the bad, that is, all kinds of people were in the grip of death. To be said simply, the dance of death was going on at that time and all the people had come under his grip.

Inspired by figures such as these events, old folklore, and Ankou, Megere Hein, and ultimately we found a skeletal figure which came to go by the name of 'The Grim Reaper'. Since then, the figure of Grim Reaper became visible in the hearts, minds, and nightmares of the people.

Grim Reaper maintains the balance of the world, or the world will go into chaos. There are also some stories on this theme in which people tried to kidnap Grim Reaper and later they realized that Grim Reaper is very important to maintain order in the world. Now, there are debates among people about the gender of The Grim Reaper.

Is it a masculine or feminine figure? But in most of the pop culture representations, Grim Reaper has been believed to be masculine, so do other people.

But did you know in the Latin-American folklore and mythologies, there is 'La Santa Muerte' aka Saint Death, who is a scared feminine figure and is represented as a skeleton.

Just like in Poland, Death is called 'Śmierć' or kostuch whose appearance resembles very much from The Grim Reaper but it is a feminine figure represented as a skeletal old woman. Though Grim Reaper wears a black cloak, Śmierć is traditionally depicted wearing a white robe.

Conclusion -

Whatever be the gender of The Grim Reaper, his stories will continue to be feared in the future. But Grim Reaper is not an innately bad figure, i.e. it is neither god nor evil. Grim Reaper's job is to maintain the order of the world.

*******
This is it, guys. I hope you enjoyed reading it. Please tell me your thoughts on this in the comments. If there are people who are from the cultures mentioned above and know about these figures then please tell me if I was wrong somewhere in the comment section.

Who remembers Grim Reaper from Goblin?? Tell me in the comment section.

Also a question for you guys: Did you guys like this? Or not? Please tell me about this in the comment section. I thought of writing something different and here it is.

And please don't forget to vote, share and follow me.

Peace out ✌️.