Ankou
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Ankou is a personification of death in Breton mythology as well as in Cornish and Norman French folklore.[1]
Ankou is also known as "Aräwn"[citation needed].
Background
This character is reported by Anatole Le Braz, writer and legends collector of the 19th century. Here is what he wrote about the Ankou in his best-seller "The Legend of Death":
- The Ankou is the henchman of Death(oberour ar maro) and he is also known as the grave yard watcher, they said that he protects the graveyard and the souls around it for some unknown reason and he collects the lost souls on his land. The last dead of the year, in each parish, becomes the Ankou of his parish for all of the following year. When there has been, in a year, more deaths than usual, one says about the Ankou:
- - War ma fé, heman zo eun Anko drouk. ("on my faith, this one is a nasty Ankou")
There are many tales involving Ankou, who appears as a man or skeleton wearing a cloak and wielding a scythe and in some stories he is described as a shadow that looks like a man with an old hat and a scythe, often atop a cart for collecting the dead. He is said to wear a black rode with a large hat which conceals his face.[1] According to some[who?], he was the first child of Adam and Eve. Other versions have it that the Ankou is the first dead person of the year (though he is always depicted as adult, and male), charged with collecting the others' soul before he can go to the afterlife.[citation needed] He is said to drive a large, black coach pulled by four black horses; accompanied by two ghostly figures on foot.[1][2]
One says that 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[citation needed].
The third friend felt bad, and so wanting to help the Ankou, first found a branch to replace the broken axle, and then gave the Ankou his shoe-laces to tie it to the cart with.[citation needed] 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[citation needed].
Ankou is the king of the dead, and his subjects have their own particular paths along which their sacred processions move.[3]
Another origin story 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.[1] Death won the contest and the prince was cursed to roam the earth as a ghoul for all eternity.[1]
Appearance in subcultures
Every parish in Brittany is said to have its own Ankou.[1] In Breton tradition, the squealing of railway wheels outside of one's home is supposed to be Karrigell an Ankou or The Wheelbarrow of Ankou.[4] Similarly, the cry of the owl is referred to as Labous an Ankou or The Death Bird.[4] The Ankou is also found on the baptismal font at La Martyre where he is shown holding a human head.[5]
In Ireland the proverb When the Ankou comes, he will not go away empty relates to the legend.[1]
Ankou in Popular Culture
The Ankou was the subject of a story by Wyndham Lewis titled The Death of Ankou (1927).[6] A young tourist in Brittany momentarily takes a blind beggar he meets as an embodiment of the Ankou, but in truth it is he who acts as the Ankou for the beggar, who subsequently dies. Lewis relied on Le Braz for some of the background to the story.[6]
Notes
- ^ a b c d e f g "Ankou". The Element Encyclopedia of the Psychic World. Harper Element. 2006. p. 25.
{{cite encyclopedia}}:|access-date=requires|url=(help) - ^ JENNY REES (April 11, 2005). "ANIMATORS GET TO GRIPS WITH WELSH MONSTERS". Western Mail.
{{cite news}}:|access-date=requires|url=(help) - ^ Wentz, W. Y. (1911). The Fairy-faith in Celtic Countries. Reprinted. Colin Smythe (1981). ISBN 0-901072-51-8. P. 218.
- ^ a b Badone, Ellen (1987). "Death Omens in a Breton Memorate". Folklore. 98. Taylor & Francis, Ltd.: 99–101. Retrieved January 29, 2011.
{{cite journal}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help) - ^ Doan, James (1980). "Five Breton "Cantiques" from "Pardons"". Folklore. 91 (1). Taylor & Francis, Ltd.: 35. Retrieved January 29, 2011.
{{cite journal}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help) - ^ a b Edwards, Paul (January 1997). "Wyndham Lewis's Narrative of Origins: "The Death of the Ankou"". The Modern Language Review. 92 (1). Modern Humanities Research Association: 22–35. Retrieved January 29, 2011.
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