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Psychopomp: Difference between revisions
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→Mythology, Folklore and Religion
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** Kings got a Celestial Ferryman (there were several, all divine) to ferry them across the celestial waterway of the afterlife.
** Kings could also climb a spiritual ladder into the sky and join the sun god in his solar boat.
* [[
* Zoroasterian: Daena for the Righteous, Vizaresh for the wicked.
* Islam: Azrael, although the Qur'an simply refers to it as "The Angel of Death". What the Koran actually refers to are ''angels'' of death, plural. Only in a hadith (which are always a slippery subject given that the Qur'an is the only reliable scripture) is there any talk of an Azrael.
* [[Norse Mythology|Norse]]: Odin, Baldr, all
* Popular Christianity: It varies, but most commonly St. Peter and various angels.
* Various: [[The Wild Hunt]] acts in a similar role in some versions of the legend (in others, it's a hunting party either for demons, [[The Fair Folk]], or the Old Gods. The French region of Bretagne has Ankou (or l'Ankou, ie the Ankou), which is similar to the Grim Reaper in many aspects but differs as his scythe is fit together wrongly ("emmanchée à l'envers") and that in some versions of the tale the last dead of the year fills the role for the following year, other versions have it that he is a suicide. Related: the washers at the ford wash the clothes of people about to die.
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* [[Irish Mythology|Celtic/Irish]]: In the original mythology, hearing the cry of a Banshee meant that someone who heard it was going to die. It wasn't until [[Dungeons & Dragons]] was made that the idea of the cry being anything more then a sign of approaching death took off.
** The ''Cyhyraeth'' fulfilled a similar role in Welsh mythology.
* [[Irish Mythology|Celtic/Irish]]: The [[Headless Horseman|Dullahan]], though actually a member of [[The Fair Folk|the Unseelie court]], hurls blood in the face of those mortals he encounters as a sign that death will claim them soon. Sometimes he is said to come driving a hearse (a black coach with candles mounted in skulls for light, human thigh bones for spokes and a human spine to hold up the worm-eaten pall) drawn by six headless horses, with or without a banshee at his side.
* Celtic/Brittany: The Ankou, who is often described as a skeletal figure in a [[Nice Hat|large-brimmed hat]] and a cloak, collecting the souls of the dead in a horse-drawn carriage.
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