Baldr

The Bright and Beloved God

Baldr’s story appears in the Poetic Edda and Snorri Sturluson’s Prose Edda. The poem Baldrs draumar follows Odin riding to the world of the dead to question a seeress about his son’s dreams. She reveals that a drink has been prepared for Baldr in Hel and identifies Hodr as his killer. The Danish historian Saxo Grammaticus preserves a very different version involving rivalry over Nanna. In Snorri’s account, Frigg takes oaths from fire, water, metals, stones, plants, animals, diseases and other dangers, making them promise not to harm Baldr. The gods test his new invulnerability by throwing objects and shooting weapons at him. Everything bounces away. What begins as relief becomes a game in the divine assembly. Loki dislikes the situation. Disguised as a woman, he asks Frigg whether every object has sworn.

She admits that mistletoe seemed too young and harmless to trouble. Loki finds it, makes a missile and approaches Hodr, Baldr’s blind brother. Hodr is standing apart because he cannot aim. Loki guides his hand, and the mistletoe flies through Baldr, killing him. The gods are speechless with grief. Frigg asks for a volunteer to ride to Hel and offer a ransom. Hermod takes Sleipnir and travels for nine nights. Hel agrees to release Baldr if everything in the world weeps for him. Gods, humans, animals, stones and trees all weep, except a giantess called Thokk. She refuses, and Snorri says the gods believe she is Loki in disguise. Baldr receives a magnificent ship funeral. His wife Nanna dies from grief and is placed beside him, along with his horse.

Odin lays the ring Draupnir on the pyre. The giantess Hyrrokkin is needed to push the ship into the sea, and Thor consecrates the fire with Mjolnir. Hermod later brings Draupnir back from Baldr in Hel, along with gifts from Nanna to Frigg and Fulla. Saxo’s account is different enough to deserve its own warning. His Balder is a warrior and rival of the human hero Hotherus for Nanna’s love. Hotherus wounds him with a special sword, and Balder dies later. Saxo wrote in Latin with his own historical and Christian purposes. His version proves the tradition varied; it does not combine neatly with Snorri’s blind Hodr and mistletoe.

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