HGB Ep. 510 - Legend of the Grim Reaper

Moment in Oddity - Soldier Carries Eyeball

During World War II there was a skirmish on Mount Croce, in central Italy. The temperatures were freezing but the Winter Line of German Field Marshal Albrect Kesselring was to be held at all costs. But in November of 1943, U.S. paratroopers forced the Germans off the mountain top. The Germans brought an onslaught of weaponry against the American Infantry with almost a constant barrage of bullets, mortar and artillery shells exploding all around them. The American troops held their ground  with small firearms. The conditions were terrible with frozen rations and shallow trenches lined with ice. Many wounded would not make it out alive and the wounded who could travel had to make it down the steep mountain to medical aid. One such wounded was Sergeant Robert Akers. The man had a flurry of shrapnel hit him in his face. One piece had popped his eye out which he retrieved and was carrying in his hand. The eye was intact and still attached to its cords. The journey down Mount Croce was precarious at best, slipping and sliding down the nearly perpendicular incline traveling where even goats would slip and fall. Akers did in fact make it to the base of the mountain and to medical aide. He was rushed to a field hospital where his eye was popped back into the socket and reattached to the cords. Incredibly, the Sergeant would regain 100% of his sight and he returned to active duty before the end of the war and that certainly is odd.

This Month in History - The Gateway Arch

In the month of October, on the 28th in 1965, the last piece of the Gateway Arch was fitted into place in St Louis, Missouri. The Arch was founded by the National Park Service in 1935 to celebrate Thomas Jefferson's vision of a transcontinental United States. However, it wasn't until 1948 that a nationwide competition took place to determine what the shape of the memorial would be. Then in 1963 construction began on the stainless steel arch, designed by architect Eero Saarinen (Eh-row Sah-ruh-nuhn). The expansive arch stretches from the Old Courthouse in Downtown St Louis to the riverfront steps of the Mississippi River. 2022 saw 1.6 million tourists visit the Gateway Arch and a tram ride can take ticket holders for an incredible journey to the top of the arch for an amazing city view. The St Louis Gateway Arch stands as a symbol of the national westward expansion of the United States, as well as an engineering triumph and example mid-century modern design.

Legend of the Grim Reaper

There is a pretty standard description of the Grim Reaper. Generally speaking, people envision a cloaked skeleton carrying a scythe. But there is so much more to this figure that has become the personification of death. On this episode, we are going to explore the centuries of mythology around the embodiment of death and explore whether this is an actual entity. And is this someone or something that we should fear?

A computer scientist named Randy Pausch was dying from pancreatic cancer when he wrote a book entitled The Last Lecture and in it he said, "We don’t beat the Grim Reaper by living longer, we beat the Reaper by living well and living fully, for the Reaper will come for all of us. The question is what we do between the time we are born and the time he shows up. It’s too late to do all things that you’re gonna kinda get around to." The listeners have probably also heard the sentiment expressed about the dash line on a gravestone between the birth and death dates: It's what you do with the dash that matters. Blue Oyster Cult in their song (Don't Fear) The Reaper sing, "All our times have come, Here but now they're gone, Seasons don't fear the reaper, Nor do the wind, the sun or the rain, We can be like they are." Death is a complicated thing and something we all face. Perhaps that is why humans have created stories around death and the various figures that legends claim come to us to guide us through. There is some comfort in the notion that after death we will be accompanied by someone who knows the ropes.

The entity that was named "The Grim Reaper" popped up sometime in the 15th century, but clearly, cultures throughout the centuries have personified death. Humans seek ways to make the transition from life to death easier. We'll never know what the earliest people thought about death because there was no written form of language, but surely they shared verbal stories. The Greeks were some of the first to write down death mythology. The term "psychopomp" comes from them. A psychopomp is a guide whose primary function is to escort souls to the afterlife, but they can also serve as guides through the various transitions of life. The term originates from the Greek words pompos (conductor or guide) and psyche (breath, life, soul, or mind). Every culture has their own version of psychopomps. In many mythologies, Death is personified in male form, while in others, Death is perceived as female. Since we get psychopomp from the Greeks, let's begin with them.

Greeks

In Ancient Greece, Death was portrayed several different ways, sometimes as a bearded and winged man and others as a young boy. They gave Death the name Thanatos and he was thought to be cruel and carried a sword. He was the son of Nyx, the goddess of night. Thanatos had a twin named Hypnos who was the god of sleep. Thanatos guided the dead to the underworld until they reached Charon who was a boatman that would take them over the River Styx to the underworld. Charon expected payment for the trip and if he didn't receive it, he would dump the person on the shores of the Styx where they would wallow for a hundred years. Thanatos had sisters as well who were called the Keres and they appeared as these females who had fangs and talons and they always wore bloody garments. Probably because they feed on the bodies of the dead  brought into the underworld, particularly those who died violent deaths. The god Hermes was also given the role of psychopomp. He was not only a messenger, but he was a god of border-crossings and he would also guide the dead to Charon.

Romans

The god Mercury is the Roman equivalent of Hermes, so he too is a psychopomp. There is a crater lake in Italy called Lake Avernus and one of Mercury's duties was to guide souls there because it was thought to be the entrance to the underworld. Roman writers used Avernus and Hades interchangeably. Virgil writes about it in his Aeneid and Odysseus also ventures to the underworld from here. One of the people Mercury guided to the underworld was a beautiful nymph named Larunda. He fell in love with her and sired two children with her along the way. So clearly, this was a bit of a long trip.

Etruscans

The Etruscans were from ancient Italy and had a significant influence on the Romans who eventually defeated the Etruscans at the end of the 3rd century BC. Their death figure was named Charun and was known as the "Demon of Death." Charun would come upon a person who was set to die and beat them over the head with a hammer until they died. he would then be joined by the goddess of the underworld, Vanth, and they would take the soul to the underworld. There, Charun would administer punishment to those who were evil in life.

Celtic

The Celts had a creepy form of the Reaper in the Breton region and they called it Ankou. Ankou appeared as a tall, haggard figure with long white hair. It wore a wide hat and drove a cart with a creaking axle that was piled high with corpses. Ankou generally appeared in the form of a skeleton and its head swiveled so it could see everyone, everywhere. If Ankou and his cart stopped outside of a house, it meant instant death for someone inside. The Irish had a creature known as a dullahan that tucked its head under its arm. This creepy creature had large eyes and a broad smile that reached to the ears. The dullahan would ride a black horse or a carriage pulled by black horses making stops at houses and calling out the name of the person who was going to die. The person would die the moment the name hit the air. Now, don't go looking for the dullahan because it doesn't like to be watched and will use a whip made from a spine to lash out your eyes. Or it could throw a basin full of blood at you and that means that you are the next to die. The Irish also have the Banshee, which is a female spirit who serves as an omen of death by wailing outside the home of someone who is going to die. If you hear the wailing it means she is coming for you shortly. References to the Banshee began in the 14th century, slightly before the Grim Reaper showed up in mythology. She usually wears a black cloak. The Scottish had a dog as their psychopomp. They called it Cù Sìth and it could be black, white or dark green in color. This dog would take dying souls to the afterlife. The Scottish also have Bean Nighe, which is an ugly entity with one nostril, one big protruding tooth and webbed feet. She usually wears a green dress and is found near deserted streams where she toils away at removing the blood from the clothes of people who are going to die.

Poland

The Polish have a figure that is similar to the Grim Reaper that they call Śmierć. This figure is actually a woman though who is skeletal and rather than wearing a black robe, she wears a white one. 

Scandinavia

Norse mythology's goddess of death was Hel and she ruled over hell where she received a portion of the dead. The Norse also had Pesta who was known as the "plague hag" and she was depicted as an old woman who wore a black hood and carried either a rake or broom. People wanted to see her carrying a rake because that meant some people would survive the plague, but if she brought a broom, everybody was going to die. There were also the Valkyries who were flying females that chose which soldiers would live or die in battle. Men chosen to die would be carried by the Valkyries to Valhalla, where they’d await the epic battle of Ragnorak. 

Hindu

The Hindu word for death is Mrityu and the lord of death in Hindu is called Yama, or Yamaraja. Yamaraja is depicted riding a black buffalo and he carries a rope lasso to capture souls so that he can bring them to Naraka or Yamaloka, the place of the dead or Hell. Yama is also the King of Dharma or justice, so punishment is dished out in Hell by him. And the decision where a soul will reside in the next life due to reincarnation is also decided by Yama. An entity named Chitragupta keeps track of a soul's good and bad deeds.

East Asian 

The Chinese have Yanluo as their god of death and he is the ruler of Di Yu, which is the underworld. Yanluo derives from the Hindu Yama and Yama actually spread into all Asian countries. The Chinese version wears a Chinese judge’s cap and traditional Chinese robes. Korean mythology has the Netherworld Emissary who works for Great King Yŏmna. This is a stern figure who escorts all people whether they were good or evil to the netherworld. Japanese mythology has the goddess Izanami as the goddess of death. She didn't start out this way. She died while giving birth to the fire god Hinokagutsuchi and goes to the perpetual night realm called Yomi-no-kuni, which is the underworld. Her husband attempts to rescue her and they have this big argument, which leaves Izanami promising that she will take a thousand lives every day. This, of course, makes her the goddess of death then. The Japanese also have  death gods called shinigami, which are similar to the Grim Reaper. They are called monsters and creatures of darkness. Buddhists refer to one of the shinigami as Mara, which is a demonic entity responsible for suicide ideation. Shinigami can also be oni, which are demons that are ox-headed or horse-faced. Buddhism also has Jizo who greets people after they die and guides them into the afterlife. Jizo especially looks after children since they are too young to understand the teachings of the Buddha and this could mean they would become stuck on the banks of the river Sai.

Latin America

Let's start back with the Aztecs. The Aztec underworld was called Mictlan and the god of lightning and death was named Xolotl. He appears as a man with a dog's head, but also sometimes is just a skeleton. He carries the dead to the underworld with his most famous transportee was the sun, which he protected when it ventured into the underworld at night. The Aztecs also had Mictecacihuatl as Queen of Mictlan and Mictlantecuhtli as King of Mictlan and they watched over the bones of the dead and presided over ancient festivals of the dead. The Queen had a defleshed body and her jaw was agape so she could swallow the stars during the day. In South American countries like Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil, there is San La Muerte, which appears as a skeletal figure holding a scythe. Mexico has the similar figure of La Santa Muerte, which is a feminine skeletal folk saint. Both of these figures have been blended into a type of Folk Catholicism. Mexico also has La Calavera Catrina, which means the "skull of Catrina." She is a representation of death that is supposed to be less threatening than the Reaper, so she wears bright colors and usually is seen smiling and dancing.

Australia

The Aboriginal people of Australia had Barnumbirr, also known as Banumbirr or Morning Star. In the Yolngu culture, she was a creator spirit who brought humans to Australia, but she also had a strong association with death. She showed the way across the waters to the distant Island of the Dead.Dolphins were also thought of as psychopomps guiding the dead to the underworld.

Egypt

The Egyptian underworld is Duat and the jackal-headed god Anubis guided the dead there, specifically dead kings. Anubis was the son of Osiris and Nephthys and he would place the hearts of kings on the scales of judgement before his father Osiris. A feather would be placed on the other side of the scale. The result would decide whether the king could enter the afterworld. Ammit was a demon who would devour the heart if the king was found lacking.

Canaan

The Canaanites of the Ancient Near East had a god of death named Mot. They believed that Mot was one of the sons of El, who was the creator god and above all gods. He was the favorite son of the god El, and the most prominent enemy of the god Baal, a god of springs, sky, and fertility. Mot was the god of sterility and the master of all barren places. Traditionally, Mot and Baal were perpetually engaged in a seasonal struggle in which Baal, like many similar harvest deities, was annually vanquished and slain. Mot, however, was also annually killed by Baal’s sister Anath, who thus aided Baal’s resurrection.

Azrael

Azrael is the angel of death in Islam, Judaism and Christianity. While he plays a role in the latter two, Islam gives Azrael a significant place as a psychopomp. He guides each and every soul directly to Allah. His appearance depends on the person’s life. If they were good they would see a beautiful being, but if they were evil they would see a horrific monster. In Talmudic lore, the Angel of the Abyss is named Abaddon, which literally means "The Destroyer." There is also an archangel named Samael who is said to be both good and bad, but he works as a seducer and accuser and is nicknamed "The Venom of God" and is the executioner of death sentences decreed by God, so that doesn't sound good. Some traditions have the archangel Michael as a good angel of death. The Bible also uses the term memitim, which means destroyer to identify destroying angels. Proverbs 16:14 uses the term "mal’ake ha-mavet" for destroying angels. For most Christians, tradition holds that an angel comes to guide the dead to the afterlife. This could be an angel of death or a guardian angel.  

One of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse show up in the Bible in Revelation 6 and the fourth is the one representing Death. Verses 7 and 8 read, "When he opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature say, 'Come!' And I looked, and behold, a pale horse! And its rider's name was Death, and Hades followed him. And they were given authority over a fourth of the earth, to kill with sword and with famine and with pestilence and by wild beasts of the earth." The pale horse could signify illness, but we've also heard that the word has been mistranslated and actually means green. There is a crossover here with Greek mythology in that it is believed that this is Thanatos. Weapons carried by Thanatos include the sword, hunger, death and beasts. Or it could be another entity entirely since this one seems to be more of a figure bringing death, rather than just guiding the dead.

The Grim Reaper

And this brings us to the star of this episode, The Grim Reaper. This figure usually appears skeletal and shrouded in a dark, hooded robe with a scythe to help him "reap" human souls. The name fits perfectly as the term "grim" describes someone who is ghastly and sinister in appearance and character and has a stern disposition. And reaping is gathering together. There is a lot of symbolism around the depiction of the Grim Reaper. The skeletal figure represents the decay of the body and what is left when the flesh is gone. Many people not only feared death, but the obliteration it brought. The skeleton is that obliteration. The black cloak that is worn not only represents the clergy who officiated wakes, but black was long associated with death and mourning. The cloak gives the Reaper an air of mystery and menace too. The scythe wasn't what the Grim Reaper originally carried. He first held arrows, darts, spears or crossbows and these were used to cut down his victims. The weapons were traded in for the scythe, which was a farmer's tool for cutting down and gathering grain and this better depicted the job of the Grim Reaper. The scythe fit better with an agrarian society who were focused more on the harvest, rather than war. Many times an hourglass is depicted with the Reaper and this symbolized that the days of humans are numbered. When the sand runs out, our time is up.

The Grim Reaper showed up during the Black Death in the 14th century. One third of Europe's entire population perished during the Plague, so death was at the forefront of people's minds. Artists struggled for a way to depict all the death around them. The Grim Reaper fit the bill and the entity started showing up in sculptures and paintings, usually looking as though it were waiting in the wings to take people away. The naked skeleton eventually hid away in the black cloak in artistic renderings. Artwork shows the Reaper to be both a travel companion to the afterlife and the bringer of death, which is sometimes depicted as a skeletal finger reaching out to kill a person with a single touch. Lore that went along with the Reaper claimed that if a person could provide a good enough reason to be allowed to live, the Reaper would leave them be. Other stories claimed that the Reaper could be tricked and a person could then live longer. 

And this brings us to stories of people encountering the Grim Reaper and living to tell about it. There are many stories set in hospitals. Nurses have reported seeing what they described as a figure in a long cloak. One nurse reported in 1997, "I was running down the hall to my patient’s room so I could relieve the nurse in charge. I ran past this room, across from the central floor nurses’ station and had run past five rooms before it registered what I saw. I did not believe it! I went back down the hall and stopped at the room. I glanced into it. On the bed was a little gray-haired lady dressed in lace, propped up with pillows. Beside the bed stood this tall figure dressed in a monk’s robe with its head covered. It looked up at me when I appeared in the door. His face was a skull with tiny red fires for eyes. His hands, skeletal, were patiently folded over each other inside the dark sleeves. My impression was he was just patiently waiting."

A man named Ralph claimed to have an encounter with the Grim Reaper after having a heart attack and being admitted to the hospital. He was lying in bed and had a sudden chill come over him that felt below freezing. Then, a figure appeared at the foot of his hospital bed. Ralph described it as being a dark, gray, cloaked stranger with no face. When asked how he knew it was the Grim Reaper, Ralph replied, "I don’t know. I just knew. The other thing I knew was I wasn’t bad enough or sick enough to go with him."

Username itsaboutpeople wrote on Reddit in 2021, "Last night I was having a bad night, tossing and turning. I woke up, fully able to move (so I'm guessing no sleep paralysis) and looked around the room. The light in the hallway was on and I looked at the doorway. I saw what I can only describe the Grim Reaper looking at me. He had a gold Scythe and what is strange a gold/yellow skull or face. It was blurry but I would say more that it was his skull. He was in his dark black robe. I looked around a bit scared but he didn't come towards me. After a minute or so he disappeared. It took me an entire day to get over this feeling. I don't think he was evil or there to take me."

Rosie wrote in 2019, "I knew in September of 2016 that my mother was close to death. She was 85 years old and had been chronically ill for over 30 years. The last 15 years of her life, she lived with my husband and I. It was about a month away from her 86th birthday and I came home from work one day and the whole atmosphere of my home felt different. The house felt gloomy, depressing and sad. I didn't figure out exactly what it was that had changed until my husband said that he caught glimpses of a dark, hooded figure going into my mothers room. I knew instantly that death had come for my mother. I would find a quiet place in the house and address it verbally. I'd say things like, "I know you're here and I know why you're here. If you've come for my mother all I ask is that you take her as quickly and painlessly as possible. If you could take her in her sleep, that would be even better because I don't want her to be afraid." Over the holidays, we made several trips to the emergency room and a couple of weeks of hospital stay. When they released her from the hospital the last week of January, 2017, they told me they were going to send her home on hospice care. Every day she was home after that I'd hug her, I'd sing to her and took extra special care to let her know how much I loved her. At 11:53 P.M. on February 7, 2017, my mother drew her last breath. She'd been sedated so she would sleep through the night but around 11:30, the night nurse woke me up to let me know she was breathing her last. If she had passed 7 minutes later, she would have died on my 56th birthday. At the moment she passed, I felt death leave my home. My husband had seen it and I had felt it. When she passed, the heavy depressing, sad feeling seemed instantly lifted."

Theoreo wrote in 2014, "I am psychic, I see people on the other side, I have lived past lives. I remember them all, especially the years leading up to my death or how I died. So here I am, I have had a lot of crazy things happen to me lately. Has anyone ever seen the Grim Reaper before? Because I have on multiple occasions before someone dies. The first time it happened was years ago, just before my cousin died. I saw the Grim Reaper standing in my grandparents bedroom, he woke me up during the night and there he stood. A dark cloaked figure, in the corner of the room. He held what I believed was a scythe in his hand and since I was young I buried under the sheets to hide. I swore the room temperature dropped and then after a few minutes of rocking under the sheets I looked up to see the Grim Reaper to be gone. It repeated over the years in several episodes where he would come see me and someone would die. One such episode happened in September of this year when I was at this play. I felt the chills and I looked to my right to see the Grim Reaper standing over a man. I was at the end of the aisle and this man was sitting in the aisle across from me. The man went into a seizure and the Grim Reaper looked up at me and brought his dark finger up to his lips or face if it were there as if saying "hush." People around me began screaming and rushing to help the man who had gone into a seizure. I was frozen stiff because I was horrified, I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Anyways the man was unconscious from what I believe after his seizure, but after the mans spasming stopped the Grim Reaper or whatever the hell he was vanished. And paramedics took the man away. Now I feel like the progression has gotten worse, I can now sense when death is close for someone. I have predicted before and both had happened in this past year."

Is the Grim Reaper just an escort who takes the departed from this world to the next or does this figure bring death? Are these legends and myths merely a way that people have tried to comfort themselves when it comes to death? Or could some of these entities be real? We guess none of us will really know for sure what will greet us on the other side. The answer to that question is for you to decide!