The Ankou: A King of the Dead in the Old Celtic World
Ankou is an ancient psychopomp of great power who was revered in Gaulic, Brythonic, Gaelic, and Norman cultures. It can be found in Breton mythology as Ankoú, in Cornish as “an Ankow,” and in Welsh as “yr Angau.” Though sometimes identified as a embodiment of death, Ankou more often seen as a servant of death and a harvester of souls. While sometimes viewed as a singular deific figure, Ankou is also variously referred to as a class of entities with individualized geographic ties.
The Ankou Is generally personified as an animated skeleton with a revolving head capable of seeing all things, or sometimes, a tall, wraith-ish figure with long wisps of white hair. It is usually described as male—though, it has also been variously described as a feminine figure—and shares many characteristics with other such mythological “reaper” figures. It is most often described as wearing a black cloak and/or wide brimmed hat, and carrying a scythe, spear, or arrow in its hands. It has also been depicted as driving a phantasmic cart pulled by black horses, with a shadowy figure walking along either side of the vehicle on foot. This procession was believed to stop at the homes of those who are about to die, and having arrived, it was said that the Ankou either knocks on the door—a sound occasionally heard by the living—or lets out a doleful howl like the Irish Banshee. More rarely, it has been reported as an apparition who can be seen entering the house, but regardless of the specific appearance, it then hauls away the spirit of the dead in its cart.
In Breton tradition, the squealing of wooden wheels outside of one’s home (particularly when accompanied by a sudden chill) is known as “Karrigell an Ankou” (“The Wheelbarrow of Ankou,”) and the screeching of owls is referred to as “Labous an Ankou” (”The Death Bird“). Likewise, in Ireland, there is a proverb that states, ”When the Ankou comes, he will not leave empty-handed“. Throughout the Celtic regions, it was the belief that if one saw or heard Ankou coming, their only hope was to flee in time, for to gaze at the face of the Ankou meant certain death.
Despite all these elements classically associated with psychopompy and death, it is intriguing to note that Breton conceptions of the Ankou and the spirits of the Dead have much in common with Faerie Faith traditions of the insular Celtic Isles. This is somewhat to be expected, as the world of Faeries and the world of Specters are intimately linked in multiple cultures, and have been for centuries untold. However, certain similarities are particularly apparent in this case. As put by W.Y Evans-Wentz in his 1911 book ‘The Fairy Faith in Celtic Countries’:
“…we may now note how much the same are the powers and nature of the dead and spirits in Brittany, and the power and nature of the fairy races in Celtic Britain and Ireland. Thus the Breton dead strike down the living just as fairies are said to do; the Ankou who is a king of the dead, and his subjects, like a fairy king and fairies, have their own particular paths or roads over which they travel in great sacred processions; and exactly as fairies, the hosts of the dead are in possession of the earth on November Eve, and the living are expected to prepare a feast and entertainment for them of curded-milk, hot pancakes, and cider, served on the family table covered with a fresh white table-cloth, and to supply music. The Breton dead come to enjoy this hospitality of their friends; and as they take their places at the table the stools are heard to move, and sometimes the plates; and the musicians who help to entertain them think that at times they feel the cold breath of the invisible visitors…”
One tale of the Ankou, recounted in the 1839 book ‘Barzaz Breiz’ by Théodore Claude Henri, appears to also vaguely reference this subtle Fae nature of the Ankou. The story states that, once, three drunk friends were walking home at night when they came upon a wizened old man driving a shabby cart. Two of the friends started shouting at the man, throwing stones as they jeered. When one of their hurled rocks broke the axle on the old man’s cart, they ran off. The third friend felt guilty, however, and took pity. Wanting to help the man, whom he did not recognize for the Ankou, he found a tree branch to replace the broken axle and gave the Ankou his shoelaces to tie the axle to the cart. That next morning, the two friends who had thrown stones at the Ankou were found dead, while the one who stayed behind to help the Spirit lived on, with only newly white hair to show for his encounter. The use of a well-trodden Faery motif–i.e. the ugly stranger who bestows fortune to those who help them and metes out punishment to those who spurn them—is telling in and of itself. However, the detail of the surviving friend’s hair turning white caught my notice too, as multiple stories do speak of the ways that mortals are physically changed following encounters with spirits of the Otherworld.
Various legends explain Ankou’s identity and how it came to be as it is, though, traditional Breton lore suggests that the last person to die each year will take on the role of Ankou for that parish until the next New Year. As such, each parish, town, or region is believed to possess their own rotating shift of specters who take on the duty of calling for the dead during a given year.
According to 19th-century Breton poet and folklorist, Anatole le Braz, in his work, ‘La Légende de la Mort’:
“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.“)
This particular Breton belief is particularly interesting to me when compared with ostensibly unrelated lore from certain areas of Scottland, which mirror many thematic aspects of the regional Ankou myth. As put by Donald MacPherson in his 1824 ‘Melodies from the Gaelic, and Original Poems; with Notes on the superstitions of the Highlanders’:
“It was the duty of the spirit of the last person interred, to stand sentry at the grave-yard gate, from sun-set until the crowing of the cock, every night, until regularly relieved. This, sometimes, in thinly inhabited parts of the country, happened to be a tedious and severe duty ; and the duration of the Faire Chloidh gave the deceased’s surviving friends, sometimes, much uneasiness.”
When viewed as a singular entity, the folkloric specifics of the Ankou become considerably broader, with several stories serving to explain his origins.
The simplest of these origin stories explains that Ankou is, in fact, Cain. While there is much known about the history behind this particular variant of the tale, is states that Cain was cursed to become the Ankou after slaying his brother Abel—forced to spend eternity gathering the souls of the dead for his sin of committing the first murder.
Another, more complex, explanation for Ankou’s emergence states that it was originally born as a cruel, selfish, rich man—some stories paint him as a prince or other royal, but all depict him as a wealthy, mean-spirited landowner. He loved to hunt above all else, spending even his Sundays hunting, instead of attending church services, and on one of these Sundays, he spotted a majestic white stag that instantly caught his fancy. In many Celtic cultures, white deer were considered sacred, and often viewed as messengers or guides from the Otherworld, but even so, he ignored the omen (though it can’t be said if he did so because of hubris, or because he was meant to represent a Christian, ignorant of the local lore.) During the chase, the wealthy hunter came across a stranger dressed all in black, riding a white steed, who was also pursuing the stag. The wealthy hunter asserted that, as they were on his land, he held the right to challenge the stranger. He wagered with the dark figure that whoever of the two managed to kill the stag could keep the meat and hide, and would be able to choose the loser’s fate. The stranger agreed to the wager, but no matter how quickly the wealthy hunter rode, he wasn’t able to get close to the white stag. In the end, it was captured by the dark stranger. Instead of accepting defeat with grace, the wealthy hunter broke the terms of the wager he himself had proposed. He ordered for his servants to grab the stranger for him, intending to slay them and take them as another prize, but the dark stranger merely laughed and told the hunter he could keep the stag and that, if he had such a passion for hunting, then he could spend the rest of his days hunting for human souls. And so, Death transformed the man into the spirit, Ankou, and charged him with the task of forever harvesting the souls of the dead.
Murky though the origins and nuances of the Ankou’s mythology may be, it presents a powerful reminder of the atavistic veneration we have held as a species for Death and its emissaries over the ages.
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Resources:
• ‘The Fairy Faith in Celtic Countries’ — W.Y. Evans-Wentz
• ‘La Légende de la Mort’ — Anatole le Braz
• ‘Celebrating Life Customs Around the World: From Baby Showers to Funerals’ — Victoria Williams
• ‘A Dictionary of Celtic Mythology’ — James MacKillop
• ‘Melodies from the Gaelic, and Original Poems; with Notes on the superstitions of the Highlanders’ — Donald MacPherson
The Wending Wayfarer 