Who Gave Death a Scythe? The Strange History of the Grim Reaper, for Sleep

Also on Spotify, to listen with your screen off: https://open.spotify.com/show/78KYY13... In Greyfriars Kirkyard in Edinburgh, against the kirkyard wall, stands the carved monument of James Borthwick, a surgeon-apothecary who died in the 1670s. In its central panel a full-size skeleton, caught mid-step as if dancing, carries a scythe, and the national record of Scotland's monuments describes it as the scythe of Father Time. This long history for sleep follows how Death came to carry a harvester's blade, and how the grim reaper got his name. Along the way: Sleep and Death, the twin brothers of Greek myth; Charon's ferry; the skeletons on the Boscoreale silver cups; Isaiah's grass and Job's sheaf; the winged woman with a scythe on the wall of the Camposanto at Pisa; Petrarch's Triumphs; the Dance of Death in Paris, London, Lübeck and Rosslyn; Holbein's woodcuts; Saturn's sickle and Father Time; the King of Terrors on Scottish stones; New England's death's heads; the Ankou of Brittany; Lessing and the lowered torch; Longfellow's Reaper; the Glasgow Necropolis; Patrick Bell's reaping machine; Godfather Death and Soldier Jack; the chess game in The Seventh Seal; Saint-Saëns's Danse Macabre; and the twelve-foot skeleton on the October lawn. Told calmly, with the evidence named, for listening late at night or drifting off to sleep. Where are you listening from tonight, and is there an old carved stone in a churchyard near you? Chapters: 0:00 The Surgeon's Monument 6:27 The Winged Woman at Pisa 12:52 Sleep's Twin Brother 19:37 Death on the Greek Stage 25:49 Skeletons at Dinner 32:16 All Flesh Is Grass 38:40 The Dead Who Spoke 45:27 Death the Conqueror 52:13 The Dance in Paris 58:20 Holbein's Visitor 1:04:10 Saturn's Sickle 1:10:48 The Blade Changes Hands 1:17:27 New England Slate 1:23:59 The Ankou of Brittany 1:30:51 The Lowered Torch 1:37:29 Why the Scythe Stayed 1:44:01 The Garden Cemetery 1:50:41 The Reaping Machine 1:56:43 Godfather Death 2:03:29 A Game of Chess 2:09:27 Dancing Skeletons 2:15:14 Back to Greyfriars #historyforsleep #grimreaper #halloween #sleephistory #dansemacabre