Reading Notes Death's Messengers Part B

 

Death coming to take away the kind young man from this Earth.

Illustration by Matthaus Schiestl.

For today's reading, I want to focus on the story about Death's Messengers. Death was in a moral form when he was beaten by a Giant to the point of (almost) death. The Giant left him there and continued on his merry way across the bridge while Death laid there, unable to move. He kept thinking to himself that the world will begin to overpopulate if he can't force himself to get up to do his job when a young, kindhearted man was passing by and saw Death laying there. He came over and helped Death to his feet, talking to him and offering him water to recover from his beating. Death felt so grateful that he told the young man that even though death was always immanent (basically, Death could not spare the young man from death), but Death promised he would send messengers to the young man when his time was near so he could be warned beforehand. As time passed, the young man grew sick. He dreamt of death and had a fever and chills with some nausea as well. The young man swore to himself that he could recover but Death came soon anyways. I liked this story a lot because Death was very kind to people he met and was only trying to do his job. Even though most people hate Death and try to escape him, he is just doing his job so that others can live happily without overpopulation and mass destruction. I never really thought of Death as being kind and straightforward, but the Brothers Grimm did a very good job of portraying his personality within this story.

Bibliography: The Grimm Brothers' Children's and Household Tales translated by D. L. Ashliman (1998-2013).