Before the grim reaper, came the ankou.
Tall, white-haired and wearing a wide-brimmed hat, this servant of death skulks around graveyards. They are the souls of those last to die at the stroke of midnight at the year's end. Doomed to another year upon the earth, they become forced guardians of the graveyard, until another soul takes their place.
If the ankou died young, they will generally try to take the souls of other young people to the grave, or, if they were elderly when death made them her servant, then the aged would do well to stay vigilant.
Usually wielding a scythe, the ankou are said to push creaky wheelbarrows, or ride carriages with horses lined in a row, wheels grinding, the noise foreshadowing a death in the village within the next three days.
If you hear the cry of a barn owl as you walk a lonely country road...run! Death is coming for you.
This servant of death can be found most prolifically in the folklore of Brittany, France, but also features in Welsh and Cornish legends. Carvings of these skeletal entities can be found in many churches and cathedrals in those areas today. A pagan survivor that has snuck into the houses of the Christian faith.