ankou

Ankou is basically the grim reaper. He is the personification of death in Breton and Cornish mythology. he is also known a the graveyard watcher, he protects the graveyard and the souls around it, he collects the souls of the people in his graveyard. He appears as a man or skeleton wearing a cloak and has a scythe, and in some stories he is just a shadow, often on top of a cart for collecting the dead, in some stories he wears a black robe with a large hat which conceals his face. he was the first child of Adam and Eve Other versions say that the Ankou is the first dead person of the year, charged with collecting the others souls before he can go to the afterlife. He drove a large, black coach that gets pulled by four black horses and two ghost’s on foot.

There is plenty of stories involving Ankou like “there were three drunk friends walking home one night, when they came across an old man on a rickety cart. Two of the men started shouting at the Ankou, and then throwing stones; when they broke the axle on his cart they ran off. The third friend felt bad and, wanting to help the Ankou, found a branch to replace the broken axle, and then gave the Ankou his shoe-laces with which to tie it to the cart. The next morning, the two friends who were throwing stones at the Ankou were dead, while the one who stayed to help only had his hair turned white. He would never speak of how it happened.

An origin story of Ankou is that the Ankou was once a cruel prince who met Death during a hunting trip and challenged him to see who could kill a black stag first. Death won the contest and the prince was cursed to roam the earth as a ghoul for all eternity.

As in most myths there is many different versions of the story, like the Celtic one that says the Ankou is a death omen that collects the souls of the deceased (like most stories say). The Ankou is the last person to die in a parish during a year. The last deceased person will become the person that has to call for the dead. They describe the Ankou as a tall, sickly thing with long white hair. It is also perceived as a skeleton with a rotating head able to see everything everywhere. The Ankou drives a cart that stops at the house of someone who is about to die. It knocks on the door, this sound is sometimes heard by the living.

The Ankou is something that you definitely wouldnt want to run into, he is literally death after all.