What do grim reapers do

The figure holds a scythe and is thought to escort departed souls to the afterlife. But who is the Grim Reaper, really, and how did Grim Reaper imagery come to represent death? The Grim Reaper is a psychopomp: a creature in this case, roughly human in form that guides departed souls to the afterlife.

Throughout history, there have been numerous psychopomps, from other human versions to animals, like ravens. Compared to ancient angels of death, the Grim Reaper is a relatively recent addition to the psychopomp ranks. It was one of the deadliest pandemics in human history, killing at least 25 million people with just its first outbreak.

Artwork from the era sometimes shows the skeleton holding a crossbow or some other medieval weapon. But eventually, this evolved into the scythe we know today. Some paintings show the Reaper swinging his scythe through whole crowds of people, reaping hundreds of souls at a time, just as the plague would have done. Eventually, the artwork began depicting the Reaper hiding within the folds of his black cloak, which is common imagery representing death and mourning.

The Grim Reaper might be the most well-known personification of death in the modern world. Here are some representations of death as a human being that appeared well before the Grim Reaper:. The modern-day personification of death includes aspects from many of those legendary figures. For example, the Grim Reaper carries a sharp tool a scythe , just as Thanatos often appears wielding a sword.

The scythe would have been more relevant when the Grim Reaper came into existence, in an age where most families relied on agriculture to earn a living. Additionally, the Grim Reaper is often pictured floating or flying, rather than simply walking. 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.

Today, the Grim Reaper continues to lord over our imaginations. Fantasy and Horror novels regularly pay homage to the Grim Reaper. The Angel of Death is interesting so his presence means it is the end of the age or close to the end?? Or does he come every few hundred years or so to keep up with the generation. Sign in. Log into your account. Sign up. Password recovery. You May Also Like:. Castor and Pollux Prof. Geller - May 28, 0. Thetis Prof.

Geller - December 29, 0. In Mesopotamian legend, Gilgamesh returns home and happily accepts his life as a mortal man. Most humans, however, aren't so easygoing. We're troubled by the idea of our own mortality.

Death is a constant shadow hanging over everything we do. Research bears this out. A survey found that 20 percent of Americans aged 50 and older become frightened when they think about what happens to them when they die. Fifty-three percent believe in the existence of spirits or ghosts; 73 percent in life after death [source: AARP ].

Clearly, what happens as we die, as well as what happens after we die, is a major concern, as it has been for thousands of years.

To make sense of dying and mortality, humans rely on a tried-and-true method: They give death a form they recognize. This turns an abstract, invisible phenomenon into something real and tangible.

If you look at death and see a familiar face, you can understand it. If you look at death and see a kind, gentle face, even better -- you can put aside your fears. Of course, it can work the other way. You can find a terrifying countenance when you look upon death. As we'll see in the next section, the frightening face of the Grim Reaper evolved after a particularly difficult time in human history.

Thanatos was the twin brother of Hypnos, the god of sleep, and both were portrayed as young, pleasant men. In some illustrations, Thanatos appears with wings and an extinguished flame. His job was to accompany the departed to Hades , the Greek underworld. There, Thanatos would deliver the souls to Charon, the ferryman on the River Styx.

In this version, death isn't ugly and frightening, but attractive and helpful. In Norse mythology , the Valkyries were beautiful young women who served both as Odin's messengers and as escorts to the souls of warriors killed in battle. In fact, Valkyries means "choosers of the slain. Then they would transport these souls to Valhalla, Odin's hall. Once in the afterlife, the brave souls were enlisted to fight in the battle of Ragnarok, an apocalyptic conflict signaling the end of the world.

In some stories, angels carry messages to mortals or protect them from harm. In other stories, they interact with the deceased, tormenting those who have sinned. The Angel of Death -- a spirit that extracts one's soul from the body at the moment of death -- appears in many religions and cultures. The archangels Michael and Gabriel have acted as angels of death in Judeo-Christian religion. Azrael is the Islamic Angel of Death, who sometimes appears as a horrifying spirit with eyes and tongues covering his entire body.

Azrael maintains a massive ledger in which he records and erases the birth and death, respectively, of every soul in the world. Sometimes, the task of escorting recently deceased souls to the afterlife falls not to human forms, but to animals known as psychopomps. Certain species of birds -- owls, sparrows, crows and whip-poor-wills -- appear frequently as psychopomps.

But an epidemiological event occurred in the late 14th century that would forever change how the average person viewed, and responded to, death. That event was the medieval-era plague , one of the deadliest pandemics in human history. At least 25 million people died in the initial outbreak of the plague, and millions more continued to die in outbreaks that flared up for centuries [source: National Geographic ].

Fear -- of dying, of the unknown pestilence, of the pain associated with the late stage of the disease, when the skin on a victim's extremities turned black and gangrenous -- gripped the entire continent.

A general mood of morbidity hung over all activities and influenced writers and painters of the time. Not surprisingly, death began to appear as a skeleton in artwork from this era. In fact, most artists portrayed the skeletal form of death in similar ways.

He was often shown holding a dart, crossbow or some other weapon. Eventually, these implements would be replaced with a scythe, a mowing tool composed of a long curving blade fastened at an angle to a long handle. Many paintings showed death swinging the scythe through a crowd of people, mowing down souls as if they were grain.

Sometimes, a young woman stood at death's side as a reminder of the link existing between life and death. Another popular notion was that death could interact with the living and tempt them to the grave. Hence the Dance of Death , or Danse Macabre, in which skeletons are shown dancing and cavorting with people from all walks of life. On the next page, we'll look at the meaning behind his form and figure. Everything about the Grim Reaper is imbued with meaning. The objects he carries, even the clothes he wears, tell us something about his nature and his intentions when he finally arrives.

Let's look at some of the symbolism, item by item. This image of the Grim Reaper was so pervasive that it even appeared in religious texts. The best example comes from the Bible's Book of Revelation.

In Revelation , four horsemen appear to usher in calamities signaling the end of the world. The horsemen are Pestilence, War, Famine and Death.

Of the four, only Death is explicitly named. He rides a pale horse, which is often interpreted as pale green, the color of disease and decay. In most depictions, Death is shown as the Reaper himself, black cloak framing a grinning skull and scythe held ready for the grisly work ahead. In the next section, we'll look at some examples of how the Reaper appears in popular culture.

One archetypal story -- the "cheating death " story -- tells of a person trying to trick the Reaper in an effort to escape death.