(Don't Fear) The (Grim) Reaper

Cultures around the world have invented wildly diverse personifications of death — from a youthful beauty to a buffalo rider to a figure covered in tongues and eyeballs. In the West, however, one image has dominated for centuries: the Grim Reaper, a skeletal figure in a dark robe carrying a scythe. This episode explores why that particular depiction became so enduring and what other death figures reveal about how different societies face mortality.