Ankou
The Ankou ( Breton : AnKou ) applies to Breton tradition as the personification of death. But he is also a ghost who watches over cemetery graves and appears on behalf of the dead. He must bypass and protect the graves from unwanted intruders. Hence its name cemetery guard . Some see him as an undead , a ghost or a demon . He is the personification of death or a messenger of death, but in any case he seeks the closeness of people.
He is also called "King of the Dead" or "Père Ankou", the latter probably later becoming the " Grim Reaper ".
After a few performances, the first dead person buried at the beginning of the year becomes an ankou. According to another popular belief , whoever is the first to be buried alive in a new cemetery becomes an ankou, but sometimes there were even selections as to who this should be.
The ankou shows itself to the doomed, mostly old and sick people, in a multitude of shapes and forms in dreams and visions or on a material level. Its most famous manifestations are:
- a skeleton driving a screeching cart at night with a scythe
- one animal
- a huge, shadowy man in a dark cloak loading the dead onto his cart
Representations of the Ankou are often to be found in the " ossuary ". Belief in this spirit of the dead is sometimes traced back to the custom of building large megalithic structures for graves in the past for heroic dead .
Ankou receives the dead at the moment of their passing and accompanies them into the underworld . Its cold, fog-shrouded entrance is said to be in Yeun Ellez in the mountains of the Monts d'Arée .
When one sees the Ankou, imminent death is inevitable.
There is also a legend about the Ankou from the Breton town of Quimper . A rich landowner is said to have invited all the villagers to a big slaughter festival. He announces the invitation to church in the cemetery. Then the voice of someone invisible asks whether he has also been invited. To celebrate, a late guest in ragged clothing appears, exuding the smell of putrefaction and who does not speak to anyone. When the party is over and the guests want to leave, the strange guest raises his face and you can see that it is a skull. Then he throws off the rags and a skeleton appears. The spirit declares that he is an ankou and that his host only has eight days to live on earth. He told him this so that he would have time to sort out his affairs and die a quiet death. The rich landowner follows the advice, confesses and communicates, and dies eight days later.
He is also said to have been seen frequently on All Saints Day .
In popular belief it is also said that the ankou scares off anyone who disturbs the calm of the dead - regardless of whether they are dead or alive. This is supposed to be the reason why you sometimes feel uncomfortable in cemeteries. (This view is widespread, at least in England.)
literature
Norbert Borrmann, Lexicon of Monsters, Ghosts and Demons ; Berlin 2000 ( ISBN 3-89602-233-4 )
Jean-Claude Fournier , Spirou & Fantasio 25: Everything as if bewitched (softcover, new edition); Carlsen ( ISBN 978-3-551-77225-1 )
