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= the grim reaper facts =

A Grim Reaper, in many cultures, is the personification of death. Despite its century old belief, a grim reaper is always depicted with a skeletal face hidden in a large black cloak holding a scythe.

See the fact file below for more information on the Grim Reaper or alternatively, you can download our 22-page Grim Reaper worksheet pack to utilise within the classroom or home environment.

ORIGIN AND MYTHOLOGY

 * In ancient Greek mythology and religion, the bearded and winged young man Thanatos, the god of death, accompanied the souls of the departed to the underworld.
 * In Norse mythology, Valkyries served as Odin’s messengers and escorts of a warrior’s soul who died in battle. They transported the soul to Odin’s Hall where they will be warriors in the afterlife to fight in the battle of Ragnarok.
 * In Judaism and Christianity, archangels Michael and Gabriel are among the known Angels of Death. They are known for carrying messages to mortals.
 * The Islamic Angel of Death, Azrael, is depicted recording a ledger of every soul in the world.
 * In Hindu texts, Yama is the god of death who rides on a black buffalo carrying a rope of souls.
 * In Chinese mythology, Yanluo is the god of the underworld or hell.
 * It is believed that the concept of the Grim Reaper began to proliferate in the 14th century in Europe. It was the time when the Black Death caused by a pandemic plague killed 30-60% of Europe’s population.
 * In the Bible’s Revelation 6:1-8, four horsemen namely Pestilence, War, Famine, and Death appear in calamities signaling the end of the world.

FEATURES OF GRIM REAPER

 * Since the Middle Ages, a Grim Reaper is personified in skeletal form just like the human body after it has decayed. It is mostly depicted wearing a black robe with a hood, which is probably adapted from funeral services of various religions. Moreover, a Grim Reaper holds a scythe, an image taken from agricultural practices of harvesting.
 * A scythe is a mowing tool with a long handle and curved blade. In some cultures, a Grim Reaper also holds an hourglass which denotes the person’s remaining time on earth.
 * In some beliefs, a grim reaper can cause someone’s death by appearing in dreams while the sleeper’s body is not able to move and soon dies of a heart attack.
 * “A Reaper. There’s Reaper lore in pretty much every culture on Earth. It goes by 100 different names. It’s possible that there’s more than one of them. Reapers stop time. You can only see them when they’re coming at you.”― Dean Winchester, Supernatural
 * Some Grim Reapers are depicted as guides of the dead towards their journey to the next world.
 * A Grim Reaper is known to possess supernatural abilities including the power to manipulate events ensuring the death of the chosen being, teleportation of people and things, to heal wounds and illnesses, and kill a living person with a single touch.

IN POPULAR CULTURE

 * Grim Reaper is among the popular characters depicted every Halloween. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow even composed a poem on how Rabbi Ben Levi tricked and escaped death.
 * The Danse Macabre or Dance of Death is a play set in the wake of the Black Death in Europe. It prepares churchgoers for the inevitability of death by dramatizing a meeting with Death in a cemetery.
 * In 1957, the film The Seventh Seal was about a story of a knight who returned home after the Crusades only to find out that his countrymen were plagued.
 * Emily Dickinson wrote Because I could stop for Death in which the narrator shared a carriage ride with Death.
 * In Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, Death showed how Scrooge will die.
 * In Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman, Death appears as a girl.
 * In 1998, Brad Pitt played Death in the film Meet Joe Black in which the character experiences the life of a mortal.

A Grim Reaper, in many cultures, is the personification of death. Despite its century old belief, a grim reaper is always depicted with a skeletal face hidden in a large black cloak holding a scythe.

See the fact file below for more information on the Grim Reaper or alternatively, you can download our 22-page Grim Reaper worksheet pack to utilise within the classroom or home environment

useless stuff :

What is the Grim Reaper?
The Grim Reaper is the lord of death—a black, shrouded specter who appears when your time on earth has come to an end. Although his personality and his work are as mysterious as death itself, one thing is for certain: he’s not someone you want to meet any time soon.

Physical Description
Unlike earlier personifications of death, the Grim Reaper has a ghoulish appearance that has made him a favorite Halloween costume for generations.

The Reaper’s look starts with a long, black cloak. The cloak wraps all the way around the specter’s body and shrouds his face beneath a deep hood. It is usually loose and tattered, so that bits of black flutter in the wind as the Reaper moves.

In his hand, the Reaper carries a scythe, a long pole with a curved blade fixed to the top. The scythe is traditionally used to harvest crops at the end of fall. In the Reaper’s case, it is used to harvest souls at the end of life. The specter might also carry an hourglass, which he uses to measure the amount of time left in a life. Finally, he may travel on the back of a ghostly white horse or in a chariot pulled by white horses.

Few people have glimpsed the figure beneath the black cloak and lived to tell the tale. Most legends paint the Reaper as a skeleton—white bones and an empty skull—but a few claim that nothing but a dark void lurks beneath the cloak.

Personality
The Grim Reaper’s appearance might send a chill down your spine, but he’s not as evil as he looks!

Above all else, the Reaper is a hard worker. His job is to collect souls when they reach the end of their time on earth, and he is extremely diligent about getting his work done. He always meets his deadlines, and he is rarely distracted from or persuaded not to do his job.

Some people might think that the Reaper, like an assassin, is despicable because he ends lives without so much as a flinch. But there’s an important difference. Assassins kill people without caring about their fate. The Reaper kills people because it is their fate to die. In many ways, his work is beneficial. He ends suffering for people who are old or sick, and he prevents overpopulation.

Special Abilities
The Reaper has an important job and special skills to match.

His signature, and most mysterious, skill is the ability to separate souls from the body. Most stories claim that the mere presence of this specter will begin to draw the soul from the body. With the crook of one boney finger, he can break your bonds to the living world forever.

After the Reaper has collected your soul, he will serve as a psychopomp, a guide who helps you find your way into the next realm.

A few stories describe heroes who have managed to trick the Grim Reaper or convince him not to take their souls. In some cases, the Reaper has even given people talismans that made them immortal.

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.