The Death of Baldr

Baldr, son of Odin and Frigg, was the most beautiful of the gods. He was bright. He gave off light from his face. He was kind, and there was nothing in him that wished anyone harm. The other gods loved him beyond measure.

Then Baldr began to have bad dreams. He dreamed that he was going to die. The dreams troubled the gods. Frigg, his mother, would not have it. She traveled the whole world. She went to fire and water, to iron and every metal, to stone and earth, to trees, to sicknesses, to beasts, to birds, to snake-poison. She made each of them swear an oath that they would never harm Baldr. They swore it gladly. They all loved him.

After this, the gods made a game of it. They would set Baldr in the middle of the field of meeting, and they would shoot arrows at him, and throw stones, and strike at him with swords. Nothing hurt him. Everything turned aside or fell harmlessly. Baldr stood in the middle laughing. The gods loved this game.

Loki the trickster watched. He did not love it. He could not bear to see Baldr untouchable, the favorite of all. He took the shape of an old woman and went to Frigg's hall.

"What is happening on the field?" he asked, in his old-woman voice.

"They are shooting at my son," said Frigg, "and nothing harms him. I have made every thing in the world swear not to hurt him."

"Every thing?" said the old woman. "There must be one thing you didn't bother with."

"There is one," said Frigg. "There is a small bush that grows just west of Valhalla, called mistletoe. It seemed too young, too soft to be worth troubling. I let it pass."

The old woman left. Loki went straight west of Valhalla, found the mistletoe, broke off a branch, and shaped it into a small dart. Then he came to the field where the gods were playing.

Standing at the edge, in his usual shape, was Höðr, blind brother of Baldr. Höðr stood by himself, not playing. Loki came up to him.

"Why are you not joining in?" Loki asked.

"I have no weapon," said Höðr, "and I cannot see where to aim."

"Here," said Loki. "I will give you a small dart, and I will guide your hand. Throw it at your brother. It is a kindness to honor him."

Höðr took the dart. Loki turned him toward Baldr and steadied his arm. Höðr threw.

The mistletoe pierced Baldr through. He fell down dead.

The field went silent. No one could find words. The gods stood like stones. Then they began to weep, more deeply than they had ever wept. None of them could speak.

When at last they could move, Frigg cried out: "Is there a god brave enough to ride to Hel and ask her to release my son?" Hermod, son of Odin, said he would go. They saddled Sleipnir, Odin's eight-legged horse, for him. Hermod rode for nine nights through valleys so dark and deep that he could not see his hand. He came to the river that bordered the underworld, and the maiden who guarded the bridge let him pass. He came to the gates of Hel and leapt them on Sleipnir. Inside, he saw Baldr seated on the high seat, pale and quiet.

Hermod went to Hel herself, the half-living half-dead queen, and asked her to give Baldr back. Hel said: "If everything in the world, every living thing and every dead thing, will weep for him, I will let him go. If even one will not weep, he stays with me."

Hermod rode back. The gods sent messengers to every corner of the world, asking everything to weep for Baldr. Everything wept. Stones wept. Trees wept. Metals wept. Animals wept. Even the cold stones in the mountains shed water.

The messengers were on their way home, satisfied, when they passed a cave in a cliff. In the cave sat a giantess named Þökk. They asked her to weep. She looked at them with dry eyes.

"Þökk will weep dry tears at Baldr's funeral," she said. "Let Hel keep what she has."

The messengers begged her. She would not. They went home.

Some say that giantess was not a giantess at all but Loki, in another shape, refusing.

Baldr stayed dead. The gods made a great funeral. They built a pyre on his ship Hringhorni, and they set the body on it, with his wife Nanna, who had died of grief at the funeral, and his horse beside him. Thor lifted the great stone hammer to bless the pyre. They lit the flames and pushed the ship out into the sea. It burned far into the night, drifting away from the shore.

After Baldr's death, the world began to grow worse. The bonds that held things together began to fray. Winter came on heavy and stayed. The gods waited, knowing that what they had lost would not come back, and that this was the first sign of the long ending the seer had prophesied. Ragnarok was now ahead of them, no longer far.

When Ragnarok comes and passes, the seer says, the world will rise again from the sea, green and washed clean. And in that new world Baldr will return from the place of the dead, to walk under a new sun. They will see him again, and he will be as he was. But not before.