Forest Folklore - Death

Rich green meadows, rolling hills, shurbbery - the earth is rich and vibrant.

The sky is troubled. It's not dark and ominous, rather bright blue underneath billows of white. The white appears as a single mass. It looks like the sky is crowded with Spirits watching a horseman pass - perhaps they follow him.

Across the meadow a white horse and black-robed rider travel. The horse is equipped with bridle and reins. The rider's robes conceal the horse's back - if there is a saddle, it's hidden.

The rider is a gaunt, pale man. His face and hands are visible, everything else is concealed by his hooded robe. He holds a sickle in his right hand; the reins in his left, however there is also a snake draped over his left arm. The snake's forked tongue is visible, tasting the air. Anyone raised in a northern country knows that winter brings a new flavor to the air, crisp and minty. Perhaps Life's Winter, the nearness of Death, has a similar flavor.

The horse's pace appears leisurely. He's walked this trail often.

Death is part of Nature, coming in His proper Season

I don't know if you can see this, but the sickle, the cutting bit, the metal bit actually looks like an eye and a bill of a bird, made me think of a stork.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stork

As you know, from the old wives' tale, the stork is the bird that brings new born babies to families. So, here you have, something ending, symbolised by the grim reaper and the sickle, and then something beginning, symbolised by the stork.

The way the sky is makes me think of smoke, actually. Fire is good, but is also bad. But fire is good in the fact that it helps to get rid of the dead wood, as it were. Also, there are some plants that fire is needed, not necessarily needed, but it can sort of augment, or speed up, the opening up and germination of certain seeds. So, fire can be seen to clear away the old, that makes way for the new. And of course, the saying, that there is no smoke without fire.

The snake symbolises healing and transformation.

The man or grim reaper is actually smiling, and like you said the horse is taking a nice leisurely walk. No fear involved in this, at all. Something that is wanted or even anticipated in some sense. The ending of something that you want to end, in essence.