Grim Reaper is basically such a concept that reminds us death ultimately comes to everyone and in the end, it harvests all the unfortunate souls. The kind of deed a person performs in his life gets the same fruit in return and the grim reaper also reaps or collects what that person has sown, hence he 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 a symbol of death. Now we know who the Grim Reaper is and what it does, but we do not know much about its origins, so where did this Grim Reaper come from? In today's article, we will discuss this topic and know some amazing facts about Grim Reaper.
Origin of Grim Reaper
There are many personifications of death in different cultures of myths which are mostly in the forms of gods or goddesses. In Greek culture, we have heard the name Thanatos which literally means 'death'. Thanatos is often depicted as a beautiful winged ephebe (A Greek term used for a young man) wearing a black cloak and holding a sword in his hand, but over time these depictions changed and he started to be portrayed as a small winged boy, just like cupid, an ancient Roman god of love and erotic desires. In Roman depictions, Thanatos held an inverted torch which represents the light of life being extinguished.
Aztec culture has 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, allowing her to swallow stars during the day.
Now in Hindu and Buddhist religion, there is a mention of king Yama, the king of the dead i.e. Yamaraja who rides a buffalo and has a noose of rope in his hand by which he drags the souls and takes them to the afterlife. Now as Buddhism spread towards the east, the mention of king Yama also spread there. King Yama became King Yan or Yanluo in China and King Enma in Japan.
But apart from gods and goddesses, another common symbol of death is a spectral figure that represents the living escort, who escorts the souls of the dead to the world of death. In some ancient indigenous rock art, we get to see pictures of some otherworldly beings or spectral figures, which then people believed to be spirits that used to take souls to the afterlife.
In Greek myths, you must have heard the name of Charon who is a hooded figure and the ferryman of the dead and he takes the souls of dead people in ferry or boat to the underworld across the River Styx (A river that forms a border between the underworld and the world of the living). Similarly, the Korean myth refers to the Netherworld Emissary, which is depicted as a stern and ruthless bureaucrat who remains busy all day long fulfilling its quota of collecting the souls of the dead.
Now all these personifications of death are similar to the figure of Grim Reaper, such figures who arrive at the time of a person's death, collecting his soul, and take it away. But the question is, where did the figure of Grim Reaper come from? There is no mention of a figure like the Grim Reaper in the Bible, now in Islam the angel of death, usually called Azrael, is said to have resembled the figure of the Grim Reaper. But the physical description of Azrael states that he is of cosmic size, has 4,000 wings, and has eyes and tongues all over his body, making it seems like there are many living human beings. And now as you might have noticed, this description is not the same as the Grim Reaper.
The Bible also neither mentions a human skull-like figure nor does any figure holding a scythe. Another thing is that the angel of death's job is to kill people, but Grim Reaper doesn't kill people, he just collects their souls. Perhaps the Grim Reaper is one of the four horsemen biblical figures who appear during the apocalypse and are mentioned in the Book of Revelation. The names of these four horsemen are Pestilence, War, Famine, and Death. Death was the last horseman in Apocalypse whose name was actually written, but still, no physical description of this horseman has been given which we can compare with Grim Reaper.
Interestingly the original language of this book was Greek and in it, the name of that horseman was told Thanatos which literally means death. And Thanatos, as we know, is a Greek god of death, so maybe this biblical horseman or character is actually inspired by Thanatos i.e. an ancient Greek god. But it may be possible that the Grim Reaper figure may not have originated from the bible but from folklore, which would be popular in Europe. Now in the Netherlands, there is mention of Megere which is called the bone man and its physical characteristics are very similar to Grim Reaper.
Megere is a skeleton figure that appears at the time of death and at the time of illness or disease, but even more, there is a figure that is very similar to the Grim Reaper. Celtic folklore mentions Ankou who appears either in the form of a man or in the form of a skeleton. He is wearing a black cloak or robe and also has a scythe in his hand. In some stories, Ankou is described as a shadow and is said to sit atop a cart from where he collects the dead. In some depictions, he is portrayed with a black robe and a large hat that conceals his face. Ankou is considered a henchman of death and his job is to protect the graveyard and collect the souls of the dead which he collects on behalf of death. Moreover, according to a popular Christian legend, it is believed that Ankou was actually the first child of Adam and Eve.
Now inspired by all these figures, we have got the figure of the modern Grim Reaper and many people believe that this figure may have originated in the 14th century when a deadly disease started spreading in Europe. In 1346, a strange disease started spreading in Europe, which was probably originated from Asia. In Europe, people started getting infected with this disease and it affected millions and today we know this disease as Black Death. This is the most dangerous pandemic in history and then common people started feeling that the world was about to end. There were so many dead bodies lying all around from which disgusting smell was coming out and then people put these dead bodies in carts and thrown them in plague pits, a term used to refer to mass graves in which victims were buried.
From 1346 to 1353, the situation had become so bad that almost 30 to 60 percent of Europe's population was killed, that is, more than half of Europe's population had died. Not only this, it is said that due to Black Death, the population of the world was reduced from 475 million to 350 million, which means that almost 25 percent of the human population on the earth was ceased. At that time death was spread all around and the theme of skeleton disease mortality also became very popular which we get to see in the art and literature of that time. At this time the idea of the dance of death i.e. Danse Macabre originated which became very popular. Death became a personified figure that was included everywhere and at all times, which did not differentiate between rich and poor, good and bad, that is, all people were in the grip of death. In simple language, at that time the dance of death was going on and all the people had come under its grip.
Inspired by these events, old folklores, and figures like Ankou and Megere, ultimately we got a skeleton figure, which we came to know as Grim Reaper and since then the figure of Grim Reaper has become involved in the hearts, minds, and nightmares of the people. Grim Reaper maintains the balance of the world or else the world will go into chaos. There are also some stories on this topic in which people tried to kidnap the Grim Reaper and later they found out that the Grim Reaper is very important for maintaining order in the world. Now there are debates among the people regarding the gender of Grim Reaper whether he is a masculine figure or feminine. But most pop culture representations describe the Grim Reaper as a male, so people tend to assume the same. But did you know that Latin American folklore mythology refers to Santa Muerte, i.e, "Saint Death" or "Holy Death", which is a sacred feminine figure and is represented as a skeletal female figure?
Similarly, Smierc, also called kostuch in Poland, has a very similar appearance to the Grim Reaper, but it is a feminine figure, represented as a skeletal old woman. What's more, the Grim Reaper often wears a black robe, but Smierc has traditionally been portrayed as wearing a white robe. Whatever be the gender of the Grim Reaper, its stories and horrors will continue in the times to come. But Grim Reaper is not an inherently bad figure, which means he is neither God nor Devil, Grim Reaper's job is to maintain world order.
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