Death on Horseback

Another powerful image that puts the fantasy imagination at the service of a biblical "great spectacle" created by Gustave Doré for the illustrated edition of the Vulgate Bible in 1866, this engraving shows the fourth horseman of the Apocalypse according to Saint John: "A pale horse, and he who rode it was called Death, and Hell followed him". Death takes here the topical features of a skeleton draped in a large hooded robe, armed with a huge scythe. More originally, the horseman is placed against a backdrop of a dark sky, the outrider followed by winged demons in a dynamic composition.
Taken as a whole, it evokes the many different derivations in European folklore of the “Wild Hunt” led by the ghosts of warriors, including the famous Mesnie Hellequin.