THE GRIM REAPER LEGEND:Where Did It Come From?
origin of the legend: The Grim Reaper has been around for a long, long time. In Celtic folklore he was known as L’Ankou, or Father Time. To the Greeks he was Cronus (the youngest of the Titans who castrated his father, Uranus, thus bringing about the birth of the Furies, the Giants, the Meliae and some say Aphrodite) and the Romans called him Saturn (god of agriculture & the harvest). origin of the name: “So when did the phrase ‘Grim Reaper’ come into use? So far, the earliest reference Joanne was able to find was to a 1931 legal case in Florida. I jumped onto the LEXIS service (for whom I work) and tracked down the case and the quote. For your reference, it’s the State of Florida ex. rel. Skillman v. City of Miami, 101 Fla. 585 at 591: ‘When one looks upon a funeral home his thoughts naturally turn to the certainty of death and to the scenes of desolation and sorrow which within his experience have been occasioned by the grim reaper.’ The case, involving a funeral home, was heard in t
