This pandemic was named ‘Black Death’ because the victims were covered in mysterious black boils that oozed blood and puss. Considering the frightening environment, where everyone feared being affected with this pandemic, it was only natural for people to view death as a skeletal figure, as the amount of corpses in the vicinity were overwhelming. Because of the plague being highly contagious, priests refused to perform last rites, resulting in unburied death bodies. The plague came in various forms in different cities, wiping out a significant percent of the population. If we browse through the medieval history and the events that took place in it, it can be concluded that a lot about the figure of death as a skeleton can be linked with the massive deaths that occurred between the late fourteenth to early fifteenth century―infamously known as The Black Death. Front page on December 1st, 1912.Īlthough life and death are the inseparable and inevitable part of this world’s existence, it was not always that death was personified as a scythe-bearer who wears a hooded cloak and carries souls to the afterlife. However, as mentioned earlier, various artists have depicted this horseman in a skeleton figure, some of them include, John Haynes after John Hamilton Mortimer in his 1784 painting “Death on a Pale Horse”, and Victor Vasnetsov in his 1887 painting, “Four Horsemen of Apocalypse”.įrench newspaper Le Petit Journal. If you carefully observe the image on the right, you would see the fourth horseman on the extreme left, riding a pale and skinny horse, and is himself quite the same, giving an almost skeleton-like look. 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.Īlthough the scripture doesn’t call death, “the Grim Reaper”, nor does it say about it wearing a black-hooded cloak holding scythe, it does act as a link to the depiction of the Grim Reaper riding a pale horse. 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. The following excerpt has been taken from the English Standard Version. Similarly, there are different mythological and religious entities that come from different cultures and beliefs from all over the globe, that somehow link with the origin of the personification of death in the form of the Grim Reaper.įour Horsemen of the Apocalypse by Albrecht DürerĪs mentioned earlier, Death is identified as the fourth horseman of which the Bible says in the Book of Revelation (6:1-8). In ancient Greek mythology, Charon was such an entity, who carried the souls of the recently deceased in a ferry across the river that separated the world of the living from the dead. The Grim Reaper is considered this psychopomp who performs his duties of carrying souls of the dead to the world of the nonliving. Many religions believe a particular spirit or deity is responsible to look after the souls after the death of a person. His skeletal face bears a grim expression that successfully haunts a number of people, instilling the never-ending fear of death and departure. While some believe that he arrives on an old coach drawn by white horses, others believe he arrives on a single horse, without any coaches. It is believe that this entity escorts souls of the deceased to the unknown territory of life after death. The scythe that he wields symbolizes the weapon of the harvester or keeper of souls. The Grim Reaper is a diabolically dark figure that has captured the imagination of many people around the world! Was he the answer that man found to his questions about the death and dying? This entity features in folklore and movies. The fourth rider is death, and is often depicted as a skeletal figure wrapped in a pale cloak in many artworks, such as an 1887 painting by Victor Vasnetsov.
Did you know that, ‘The Book of Revelation’, which is the last book of the New Testament of the Bible, records of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse? The four ride a white, red, black, and pale horse, respectively.
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