Ankou

Character often returning in the oral Tradition and the Tale S Breton S, the Ankou ( year Ankoù ) is the personification of the Mort in Low-Brittany.

Description

He does not represent Death in itself, but his servant: its role is to collect in its squeaking cart ( karr year Ankoù , karrigell year Ankoù , karrik year Ankoù ) the hearts of late recent. When alive hears the noise of the cart ( wig ha wag !), it is that it (or according to another version, somebody of its entourage) will not be long in passing from life to demise. It is also said that which sees Ankou dies in the year.

Here how Anatole describes it Braz in his collection of legends the Legend of Dead the :

Ankou is the workman of died ( oberour rear maro ). Last the death of the year, in each parish, becomes Ankou of this parish for the following year. When there was, in the year, more death than usually, one says while speaking about Ankou in function:

- War my Fe, heman zo eun Anko drouk. (On my faith, this one is malicious Ankou.)

One depicts Ankou, sometimes like a very large and very thin man, the long and white hair, the shaded figure of a broad felt; sometimes in the shape of a draped skeleton of a shroud, and whose head transfers unceasingly with the top of the spinal column, as well as a wind vane around its iron stem, so that it can at a single glance embrace all the area which it has mission of parcourir.

In one and the other case, it holds with the hand a scythe. This one differs from the ordinary forgeries, in what it has the outwards turned edge. Also Ankou does not bring back it to him, when it mows; as opposed to what make the reapers of hay and the harvesters of corn, it launches it ahead.

Thus Ankou is a moving being, a relay that do without each year the late last December. Graphically it is represented like a being without age, of nondistinct aspect since covered by a cape, often black (or of a shroud). Contrary to the skeletal representations of Death, Ankou is represented most of the time like a being of flesh, since he was man one day. However, the carved figurations of Ankou of certain churches (Martyrdom) present it in skeleton to the hollow orbits, armed with an arrow or a scythe.

Bonds

Crowned Brittany: Ankou in the Breton sculpture

Ankou in the popular culture

Two sculptures represent it, one with the museum of Morlaix, the other with Ploumilliau, in the Coast-with Armor. They are both of the XVIIe century.
Multiple appearances in the tales and legends of Brittany ( the Legend of dead the , of Anatole Braz, for example)
a Cartoon of Spirou has as a title Ankou . Drawn in 1978 by Baker, it is the only data base of Spirou drawn by him which was also translated and published into Breton. She is called logically An Ankou . The translation is of Loeiz Moulleg.
One sees also Ankou in another cartoon, Bran Ruz, on the road of the Fest-noz and of sound Kan ha diskan singing the Celtic legend of the town of Ys.
One finds the ankou in certain video games such as the series of the Final fantasy which makes it possible to call upon Ankou and to kill the enemies of only one blow.
In episode 35 of the third season of Kaamelott ( Ankou ), it is question mainly of Ankou which grinds in the corridors of the castle.
a spectacle named An Ankou represents this character in a rather lugubrious and mysterious universe. The BO on the site: http://oceanik.creations.free.fr/jrmeparessantanankou.html
Still of the data base, this time at the editions sun, the series " Tales of Ankou" propose little stories turning around the henchman of death.
Always of the data base, lately Ankou appeared in the data base of Vincent Perez " Forêt" where all the protagonists must go in the field of this one in order to find a heart
there Ankou is also the name of the team of Rennes of existing American football since 2003.

Ankou and the Christmas Eve

The Breton ones name the Christmas Eve the " harms of Merveilles". During this night, during the midnight mass, Ankou with the practice to pass very close to its cape all those which will not spend the year.

See too

Celtic Mythology
Mowing (allegory)

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