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Our earliest records of the Reaper date back to Greek civilization. Gaia and Uranus were Kronos' parents. Uranus, fearful of all his children including Kronos kept them constrained inside Gaia. Gaia wished to free her children and decided to give Kronos a sickle. With this sickle Kronos eventually castrated his father and bled him to death. Knowing how he had killed his father, once Kronos had children of his own, he feared his fate would be the same. As each child was born he swallowed them one by one.
From ancient folklore and other anthropological sources it is believed that Kronos was a harvest god worshipped by a culture before the Greeks. It is understood that his sickle was used in harvesting grain. Harvest was also associated with death because it signaled the end of the growing season and the beginning of Winter. Time devouring all things was represented poetically by Kronos eating his own children. It was the Greeks very dramatic way of saying nothing lasts forever.
The Grim Reaper wielding a sickle and, at times, an hourglass is directly derived from Kronos. One must understand how important grain was to these ancient civilizations. How horrible the thought of some mystic creature with the power to swipe away their whole harvest with a single swing of the mighty sickle. Not to mention the flock of famished crows, which would accompany such a terrible figure. It undoubtedly symbolized death in an extremely effective way. Though the Grim Reaper poses no real threat to our life, his legacy, which has been handed down from generation to generation, has instilled in us all the fear we need to ensure the desired effect. Hopefully, this answer aided you in understanding the significance of such a relevant myth.
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i heard he's a part of jewish religion
The Grim Reaper is actually a derivative of Cheron the skeletal ferryman who ferried the souls of mortals and kings across the river Styx.
Why, the Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy, of course! Kidding...kidding...
The Grim Reaper is a anthropomorphic personification, in this case, of Death.
In ancient Greece death was inevitable and so they thought of him more kindly. They called him Thanatos. He was not represented as purely evil, merely a stepping stone. He was just, and gentle. They usually sculpted him as a bearded and winged man, but he can sometimes be seen as a young boy. His job was to take the soul to Hades's underworld, leaving them with Charon, the man in the boat on the river Styx
In Germanic folklore the Grim Reaper was a disguise used by Odin, god of wisdom, war, battle, and death. The Grim in Grim Reaper is actually short for Grimnir, another name for Odin.
It was with the Welsh and Bretons that he started to carry his scythe. They called him Angeu and Ankou respectively. Only this time he was a man (not skeleton) who carried the scythe. It wasn't until the 1400 A.D. that the skeleton became used.
The Lithuanians called him GiltinÄ—, from the word "gelti" which means sting. In Hindu scripture he is Yamaraj, literally "the lord of death". To the Chinese he is "Yanluo". To the Japanese, he is Enma, or shinigami. In Islam, he is Azra'il. Other names are: The Destroyer, The Destroying Angel, The Angel of Death,
i don't think that the grim reaper is scary and we shouldn't fear him, because without death, the world would be a very bad place, just imagine what the world would be like if Hitler didn't die.........
I don't think the Grim Reaper is a bad person, he is just doing his job. Without death, the world would be a very bad place, just imagine what the world would be like if Hitler was still here.......................
These symbols are often amalgms of various strands of mythology, preserved along the history of a people. In this case, the Grim Reaper is a personification of Death itself. The idea of cutting/reaping is a natural symbol of death. You find it in the Roman Fates/Greek Moirae, the last of whom cuts the thread of life.
But the idea of reaping= death is a natural one for agrarian peoples, who see the reaping as the end of the harvest= life.
However, there might be specific characters who played a part in the development of the Grim Reaper.
eg
The origins of the Grim Reaper go back far into the past and he was known by many names. In old Celtic folklore he was known as L’Ankou, sometimes called Father Time. To the Greeks he was known as Cronus and the Romans called him Saturn.
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Grim+Reaper
Actually the Original reaper of souls in Greek Times was Thanatos. Hes a Servant of Hades god of the Dead
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This is exactly what I was looking for thank you!!
by Demetrius on September 13th, 2008