Anonymous ID: 7425f6 July 3, 2020, 1:41 a.m. No.9838297   🗄️.is đź”—kun   >>8304

>>9838289

Cultural Representation

Origin

Personifications of death exist in all cultures, throughout all of recorded history. Ancient people took a friendlier approach to death. For example, Thanatos, the Greek god of death, was an attractive and noble-hearted young man, and the Valkyries, who decided which Norse soldiers should die in battle, were beautiful and heroic women.

 

The turning point in our attitude towards death came in the fourteenth century, when Europe was ravaged by the Black Plague. In some cities, as many as one in five people died from the plague. Decaying bodies piled up in the streets, and everyone had loved ones to grieve.

 

During the plague, artists began painting death as a horrific figure. Skeletons, armed with deadly weapons, danced among plague victims in the street or rode white horses with wagons full of bodies attached. Eventually, a black cloaked figure, the first recognizable Reaper, began appearing at the head of these ghastly processions. His dark costume and curved scythe may have been inspired by plague doctors, who wore dark shrouds and bird-like masks to protect themselves from breathing infected air.

 

The name “Grim Reaper” didn’t appear until the nineteenth century, although “the Grim” was a popular nickname for death dating all the way back to the thirteenth century.

 

Modern Appearances

Today, the Grim Reaper continues to lord over our imaginations. He has become the world’s most iconic personification of death.

 

Fantasy and Horror novels regularly pay homage to the Grim Reaper. Films like Scream and Goblin have played off his dark look, while books like JK Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book have added new stories to the Reaper’s long legend

 

https://mythology.net/mythical-creatures/grim-reaper/