Ankou

This article may contain original research or unverified claims. Please improve the article by adding references. See the talk page for details. (September 2007)

Ankou in La Roche-Maurice, Finistère

Ankou is a personification of death in Breton mythology.

Background

This character is reported by Anatole Le Braz, writer and legends collector in the 19th century. Here is what he wrote about the Ankou in his best-seller "The Legend of the Death":

The Ankou is the henchman of the Death (oberour ar maro). The last dead of the year, in each parish, becomes the Ankou of this parish for all the following year. When it has been, in a year, more death than usual, one says about the Ankou:

- War ma fé, heman zo eun Anko drouk. ("on my faith, this one is a nasty Ankou")

It is said that he is the one who collects the souls of the dead and aids them on their journey to the next world, in his rickety old cart. The cart is pulled along either by two horses, one of which is old and thin while the other is youthful and strong, or by four black horses of unspecified age.

According to legend he is tall, and wears a wide-brimmed hat and long coat. Some tales have it that he has two companions, who are skeletons in some versions, following behind his cart and tossing the dead into it.

There are many tales involving Ankou. According to some 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 before he can go to the afterlife.

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 Ankou, and then throwing stones, when they broke the axle on his cart they ran off.

The third friend felt bad, and so wanting to help Ankou, first found a branch to replace the broken axle, and then gave Ankou his shoe-laces to tie it to the cart with. The next morning, the two friends who were throwing stones at Ankou were dead, while the one who stayed to help only had his hair turned white. He would never speak in detail about how it happened.

Ankou is king of the dead, and his subjects have their own particular paths along which their sacred processions move.^[1]

Ankou in popular culture

• Ankou is in the Monster in My Pocket series. Grave Watcher, #106 appears to be a similar figure, perhaps one of his following skeletons. The 2006 relaunch includes yet another similar figure (closer to Ankou than Grave Watcher), now known as Grim Watcher.

• In the video game Soul Calibur III, Zasalamel's first unlockable weapon is named Ankou. As Zasalamel seeks death, this is a fitting name.

• In the Angelos Mythos he is an angel punished with eternal life and serves as a teacher to some characters.

• In the MMORPG RuneScape, Ankous are powerful monsters with plenty of hitpoints and a powerful punch, made for the Stronghold of Security which features a cameo to the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, with Ankous being a monster in the Sepulchre of Death (Ankous here look like skeletons with transparent flesh).

• In The North Sea & Rameses III 2006's collaboration album, Night of the Ankou, edited by Type Records.

• This character appears in several French or Belgian graphic novels, even as a major character like in the album 27 of the "Spirou and Fantasio" serie.

• Ankou also is the name of the American football team of the town of Rennes in France.

• Ankou is referred to in the Cerements episode of Worlds' End, volume 8 of Neil Gaiman's The Sandman series.

• Ankou is referenced in Clanbook: Malkavian, part of White Wolf Publishing's World of Darkness series of role-playing games, as being a legendary member of that Clan.

• Ankau is a short story by Arthur Ransome about the peasants of Brittany; published in Coots in the North.

See also

• Fairy path

Notes

1. ^ Wentz, W. Y. (1911). The Fairy-faith in Celtic Countries. Reprinted. Colin Smythe (1981). ISBN 0-901072-51-8. P. 218.

References and further readings