Welcome back to White Rose of Avalon my Darlings!   Today’s post is about the Grim Reaper and the general appeal of the Personification of Death!   There are countless representations of Death personified as a person, for which we have millennia of evidence.   I used Grim Reaper in the title of this post, but he is actually a quite modern interpretation of Death being personified.

I want to begin with the ancient Greek God Thanatos, who is the actual personification of Death in the Hellenic Pantheon.    He works directly under King Hades, who is the King of the Underworld and Lord of Death.    It is Thanatos who gathers the souls to the Underworld, along with Hermes, both acting as Psychopomps.   Queen Persephone is the Queen of the Underworld and has rulership over the Dead.   Persephone can even be seen as possibly related to the older Sumerian Goddess Ereshkigal, who was the Queen of the Underworld and sister of Inanna, having a prime role in Inanna’s descent into the Underworld.    Charon is the Ferryman of the River Styx, who takes the Dead deeper into the Underworld, working in tandem with Thanatos and Hermes.    Altogether, they work as personifications of how Death was viewed during the Hellenic period in Greece!   That is why I wanted to explain the role of each of these Deities, not just Hades, Persephone, and Thanatos.

Next, I want to move on to Norse mythology.   In the Norse belief, the Underworld was ruled by a Goddess named Hel, who was one of the daughters of the Trickster God Loki.   But the more iconic Norse figures when it comes to personifying Death and being Psychopomps, were the Valkyries!   The Valkyries are the choosers of the slain warriors who died in battle.   They bring the souls of the Dead to either Freya’s hall of Fólkvangr or  Odin’s hall of Valhalla.    Interestingly Freya gets the first pick of all slain warriors, meaning that the first picks go to Fólkvangr and the rest of the brave Dead go to Valhalla.    Many people consider Freya to be the Queen of the Valkyries, in addition to her roles as Goddess of War, Goddess of Love, and a Goddess of Witches, who taught the art of Seidr.    Between Freya, Valkyries, and Hel, there is a lot of Divine Feminine energy in the Norse beliefs surrounding Death.

This leads perfectly to the subject of Goddesses of Death and Faery Goddesses of Celtic myth.   Faery Realms are by their very nature also realms of the Dead.    In Celtic myths, we see the tales of Banshees, who are Faery Women working as Omens of Death, with their screams heralding the oncoming Death.    A related Faery Woman is the Washer at the Ford, who washes the clothes of the Dead before the upcoming battle, working in a similar way to both the Banshee and the aforementioned Valkyrie.   However, my favorite Death Goddess of Celtic lore will be unsurprising to regular readers here, and she is Morgan le Fay!   Morgana is the Queen of Avalon, a Faeryland of Healing and the Dead.   She is also often depicted as Arthur’s half-sister and the Evil Sorceress who plots the downfall of Camelot.    Yet there is one thing that is always true of her, and that is her aspect as Psychopomp.    She is always the one to Ferry Arthur to Avalon when he is dying after his final battle of Camlann.   In her aspect as both a Queen of Death and a midwife of those who are dying, she is the comfort and the bringer of balance.   That which lives must die, and that which dies will one day live again!

All of these personifications of Death led up to the more modern Grim Reaper.   Although, he is also likely partially borrowed from the Christian concept of an Angel of Death.    Our Grim Reaper is a hooded skeleton who carries a scythe.    He is there to make sure we depart to the afterlife and into the next phase of our soul’s journey!    He is acting very much in the way each of the personifications of Death I have discussed in this post.    He is just the most modern way we conceptualize Death being personified!   When we imagine who will come for us as we lay dying, the image is usually the classic Grim Reaper, but who knows, depending on your beliefs, some of the other Personifications of Death discussed in this post may come to help you cross over one day!   

I hope that you have enjoyed this post.    What is your favorite personification of Death?   Let me know your thoughts in the comments below!

Note on Image: The image at the top of the post is the Grim Reaper.   I found the image on https://accounts.google.com/InteractiveLogin/signinchooser?authuser=0&continue=https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.GrimReaperWallpaperHD&hl=en_US&followup=https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?

Tarot Note: I have a page offering tarot and oracle readings for those interested in these services!    I am very happy to be offering these readings to my treasured readers at White Rose of Avalon!  Link to page: https://whiteroseofavalon.life/tarot-and-oracle-readings/

Further Reading

• Bulfinch’s Mythology by Thomas Bulfinch
• Mythology by Edith Hamilton
• Le Morte D’Arthur by Sir Thomas Malory
• Vita Merlini by Geoffrey of Monmouth