Portenders of Death have an ambivalent role to play in the folklore of the macabre. While very few mortals embrace their demise, they do at least regard it as inevitable and sometimes as natural and right. A death messenger, whilst hardly bringing the kind of news one thrills to hear, maybe simply has a role to play. A death messenger can even add an elite aspect to the final journey where they are particular to established or aristocratic families in the way that Banshees are: to be listed in Who's Who is a postive mundanity compared to having your own supernatural death escort.
In the case of Banshees, it is clear that they do nothing more than wail a pained warning of inescapable destiny. But other cases are less clear. It seems that some types of portender may actually cause death. Many portenders are interpreted to be ghosts of the dead and since the dead have come to prey on the living since time immemorial, this should be no particular suprise.
The survival of pre-Christian ideas and motifs are particularly noticeable when it comes to Portenders of Death, motifs which have made their way into more modern myths, such as Spectral Coaches and Vanishing Hitch-Hikers.
Portenders of Death is a huge subject, covered more fully in the book of Unnatural Predators. To find out more, just join our mailing list.
