Norse Mythology

THE DEATH OF BALDER

I

Nothing there is that does not love the sun. It gives us warmth and life; it melts the bitter snow and ice of winter; it makes plants grow and flowers bloom. It gives us the long summer evenings, when the darkness never comes. It saves us from the bitter days of midwinter, when the darkness is broken for only a handful of hours and the sun is cold and distant, like the pale eye of a corpse.

Balder’s face shone like the sun: he was so beautiful that he illuminated any place he entered. Balder was Odin’s second son, and he was loved by his father, and by all things. He was the wisest, the mildest, the most eloquent of all the Aesir. He would pronounce judgment, and all would be impressed by his wisdom and his fairness. His home, the hall called Breidablik, was a place of joy and music and knowledge.

Balder’s wife was Nanna, and he loved her and only her. Their son, Forsete, was growing to become as wise a judge as his father. There was nothing wrong with Bal-der’s life or his world, save only one thing.

Balder had bad dreams.

He dreamed of worlds ending, and of the sun and the moon being eaten by a wolf. He dreamed of pain and death without end. He dreamed of darkness, of being trapped. Brothers slew brothers in his dreams, and nobody could trust anyone else. In his dreams, a new age would come upon the world, an age of storm and of murder. Balder would wake from these dreams in tears, troubled beyond all telling.

Balder went to the gods and he told them of his nightmares. None of them knew what to make of the dreams, and they too were troubled, all but one of them.

When Loki heard Balder talk of his bad dreams, Loki smiled.

Odin set out to find the cause of his son’s dreams. He put on his gray cloak and his broad-brimmed hat, and when folk asked his name, he said he was Wanderer, son of Warrior. Nobody knew the answers to his questions, but they told him of a seer, a wise woman, who understood all dreams. She could have helped him, they said, but she was long dead.

At the end of the world was the wise woman’s grave. Beyond it, to the east, was the realm of the dead who had not died in battle, ruled over by Hel, Loki’s daughter by the giantess Angrboda.

Odin traveled east, and he stopped when he reached the grave.

The all-father was the wisest of the Aesir, and he had given his eye for more wisdom.

He stood by the grave at the end of the world, and in that place he invoked the darkest of runes and called on old powers, long forgotten. He burned things, and he said things, and he charmed and he demanded. The storm wind whipped at his face, and then the wind died and a woman stood before him on the other side of the fire, her face in the shadows.

“It was a hard journey, coming back from the land of the dead,” she told him. “I’ve been buried here for such a long time. Rain and snow have fallen on me. I do not know you, man-who-raised-me. What do they call you?”

“They call me Wanderer,” said Odin. “Warrior was my father. Tell me the news from Hel.”

The dead wise woman stared at him. “Balder is coming to us,” she told him. “We are brewing mead for him. There will be despair in the world above, but in the world of the dead there will be only rejoicing.”

Odin asked her who would kill Balder, and her answer shocked him. He asked who would avenge Balder’s death, and her answer puzzled him. He asked who would mourn Balder, and she stared at him across her own grave, as if she were seeing him for the first time.

“You are not Wanderer,” she said. Her dead eyes flickered, and there was expression on her face. “You are Odin, who was sacrificed by himself to himself so long ago.”

“And you are no wise woman. You are she who was in life Angrboda, Loki’s lover, mother to Hel, to Jormungundr, the Midgard serpent, and to Fenris Wolf,” said Odin.

The dead giantess smiled. “Ride home, little Odin,” she told him. “Run away, run back to your hall. No one will come to see me now until my husband, Loki, escapes from his bonds and returns to me, and Ragnarok, the doom of the gods, tearing all asunder, approaches.”

And then there was nothing in that place but shadows.

Odin left with his heart heavy, and with much to think about. Even the gods cannot change destiny, and if he was to save Balder he would have to do it with cunning, and he would need help. There was one other thing that the dead giantess had said that disturbed him.

Why did she talk about Loki escaping his bonds? wondered Odin. Loki is not bound. And then he thought, Not yet.

II

Odin kept his own counsel, but he told Frigg, his wife, mother of the gods, that Balder’s dreams were true dreams, and that there were those who meant their favorite son harm.

Frigg thought. Practical as ever, she said, “I do not believe it. I shall not believe it. There is nothing that despises the sun and the warmth and the life it brings the earth, and by the same token there is nothing that hates my son Balder the beautiful.” And she set out to ensure that this was so.

She walked the earth and exacted an oath from each thing that she encountered never to harm Balder the beautiful. She spoke to fire, and it promised it would not burn him; water gave its oath never to drown him; iron would not cut him, nor would any of the other metals. Stones promised never to bruise his skin. Frigg spoke to trees, to beasts, and to birds and to all things that creep and fly and crawl, and each creature promised that its kind would never hurt Balder. The trees agreed, each after its kind, oak and ash, pine and beech, birch and fir, that their wood could never be used to hurt Balder. She conjured diseases and spoke to them, and each of the diseases and infirmities that can hurt or wound a person agreed that it too would never touch Balder.

Nothing was too insignificant for Frigg to ask, save only the mistletoe, a creeping plant that lives on other trees. It seemed too small, too young, too insignificant, and she passed it by.

And when everything had sworn its oath not to harm her son, Frigg returned to Asgard. “Balder is safe,” she told the Aesir. “Nothing will hurt him.”

All of them doubted her, even Balder. Frigg picked up a stone and whipped it toward her son. The stone skipped around him.

Balder laughed with delight, and it was as if the sun had come out. The gods smiled. And then one by one they threw their weapons at Balder, and each of them was astonished and amazed. Swords would not touch him, spears would not pierce his flesh.

All the gods were relieved and happy. There were only two faces in Asgard that were not radiant with joy.

Loki was not smiling or laughing. He watched the gods hack at Balder with axes and with swords, or drop enormous rocks on Balder, or try to strike Balder with huge knotted wooden clubs, and laugh as the clubs and swords and rocks and axes avoided Balder or touched him like gentle feathers, and Loki brooded, and slipped away into the shadows.

The other was Balder’s brother Hod, who was blind.

“What is happening?” asked blind Hod. “Will somebody please tell me what is happening?” But nobody talked to Hod. He listened to the sound of merrymaking and joy, and he wished he could be a part of it.

“You must be very proud of your son,” said a kindly woman to Frigg. Frigg did not recognize the woman, but the woman beamed when she looked at Balder, and Frigg was indeed proud of her son. Everybody loved him, after all. “But won’t they hurt him, the poor darling? Throwing things at him like that? If I were his mother, I would be afraid for my son.”

“They will not hurt him,” said Frigg. “No weapon can hurt Balder. No disease. No rock. No tree. I have taken an oath from all the things there are that can harm.”

“That’s good,” said the kindly woman. “I’m pleased. But are you sure you didn’t miss any of them?”

“Not a one,” said Frigg. “All the trees. The only one I did not bother with was the mistletoe—it’s a creeper that grows on the oak trees west of Valhalla. But it’s too young and too small ever to do any harm. You could not make a club from mistletoe.”

“My, my,” said the kindly woman. “Mistletoe, eh? Well, truth to tell, I wouldn’t have bothered with that either. Much too weedy.”

The kindly woman had begun to remind Frigg of someone, but before the goddess could think who it was, Tyr held up an enormous rock with his good left hand, held it high above his head, and crashed it down on Balder’s chest. It disintegrated into dust before ever it touched the shining god.

When Frigg turned back to talk to the kindly woman, she was already gone, and Frigg thought no more about it. Not then.

Loki, in his own form, traveled to the west of Valhalla. He stopped by a huge oak tree. Here and there pendulous clumps of green mistletoe leaves and pale white berries hung from the oak, seeming even more insignificant when seen next to the grandeur of the oak. They grew directly out of the bark of the oak tree. Loki examined the berries, the stems, and the leaves. He thought about poisoning Balder with mistletoe berries, but that seemed too simple and straightforward.

If he was going to do harm to Balder, he was going to hurt as many people as possible.

III

Blind Hod stood to one side, listening to the merriment and the shouts of joy and astonishment coming from the green, and he sighed. Hod was strong, even if he was sightless, one of the strongest of the gods, and usually Balder was good about making certain that he was included. This time, even Balder had forgotten him.

“You look sad,” said a familiar voice. It was Loki’s voice.

“It’s hard, Loki. Everyone is having such a good time. I hear them laughing. And Balder, my beloved brother, he sounds so happy. I just wish I could be part of it.”

“That is the easiest thing in the world to remedy,” said Loki. Hod could not see the expression on his face, but Loki sounded so helpful, so friendly. And all the gods knew that Loki was clever. “Hold out your hand.”

Hod did so. Loki put something into it, closed Hod’s fingers around it.

“It is a little wooden dart I made. I will bring you close to Balder, and I will point you at him, and you shall throw it at him as hard as you can. Throw it with all your might. And then all the gods will laugh and Balder will know that even his blind brother has taken part in his day of triumph.”

Loki walked Hod through the people, toward the hubbub. “Here,” said Loki. “This is a good place to stand. Now, when I tell you, throw the dart.”

“It is only a little dart,” said Hod wistfully. “I wish I were throwing a spear or a rock.”

“A little dart will do,” said Loki. “The tip of it is sharp enough. Now, throw it there, like I told you.”

A mighty cheer and a laugh: a club made of knotted thornbush wood studded with sharp iron nails was swung by Thor into Balder’s face. The club skipped up and over his head at the last moment, and Thor looked as if he were dancing. It was very comical.

“Now!” whispered Loki. “Now, while they are all laughing.”

Hod threw the dart of mistletoe, just as he had been told. He expected to hear cheers and laughter. Nobody laughed, and nobody cheered. There was silence. He heard gasps, and a low muttering.

“Why is nobody cheering me?” asked blind Hod. “I threw a dart. It was neither big nor heavy, but you must have seen it. Balder, my brother, why are you not laughing?”

He heard wailing then, high and keen and awful, and he knew the voice. It was his mother who wailed.

“Balder, my son. Oh Balder, oh my son,” she wailed.

It was then that Hod knew his dart had hit home.

“How terrible. How sad. You have killed your brother,” said Loki. But he did not sound sad. He did not sound sad at all.

IV

Balder lay dead, pierced by the mistletoe dart. The gods gathered, weeping and tearing their garments. Odin said nothing, save only, “No vengeance will be taken on Hod. Not yet. Not right now. Not at this time. We are in a place of holy peace.”

Frigg said, “Who among you wants to win my good graces by going to Hel? Perhaps she will let Balder return to this world. Even Hel could not be so cruel as to keep him . . .” She thought for a moment. Hel was, after all, Loki’s daughter. “And we will offer her a ransom to give us Balder back. Is there one of you who is willing to travel to Hel’s kingdom? You might not return.”

The gods looked at each other. And then one of them raised his hand. This was Hermod, called the Nimble, Odin’s attendant, the fastest and the most daring of the young gods.

“I will go to Hel,” he said. “I will bring back Balder the beautiful.”

They brought forth Sleipnir, Odin’s stallion, the eight-legged horse. Hermod mounted it and prepared to ride down, ever down, to greet Hel in her high hall, where only the dead go.

As Hermod rode into darkness, the gods prepared Balder’s funeral. They took his corpse and they placed it on Hringhorn, Balder’s ship. They wanted to launch the ship and burn it, but they could not move it from the shore. They all pushed and heaved, even Thor, but the ship sat on the shore, unmoving. Only Balder had been able to launch his ship, and now he was gone.

The gods sent for Hyrrokkin the giantess, who came to them riding on an enormous wolf, with serpents for reins. She went to the prow of Balder’s ship and she pushed as hard as she could: she launched the ship, but her push was so violent that the rollers the ship was on burst into flame, and the earth shook, and the waves were terrifying.

“I ought to kill her,” said Thor, still stinging from his own failure to launch the ship, and he grasped the handle of Mjollnir, his hammer. “She shows disrespect.”

“You will do nothing of the kind,” said the other gods.

“I’m not happy about any of this,” said Thor. “I’m going to kill somebody soon, just to relieve the tension. You’ll see.”

Balder’s body was brought down the shingle, borne by four gods; eight legs took him past the crowd assembled there. Odin was foremost in the crowd of mourners, his ravens on each shoulder, and behind him the Valkyries and the Aesir. There were frost giants and mountain giants at Balder’s funeral; there were even dwarfs, the cunning craftsmen from beneath the ground, for all things that there were mourned the death of Balder.

Balder’s wife, Nanna, saw her husband’s body carried past. She wailed, and her heart gave out in her breast, and she fell dead onto the shore. They carried her to the funeral pyre, and they placed her body beside Balder’s. Out of respect, Odin placed his arm-ring Draupnir onto the pyre; this was the miraculous ring made for him by the dwarfs Brokk and Eitri, which every nine days would drip eight other rings of equal purity and beauty. Then Odin whispered a secret into Balder’s dead ear, and what Odin whispered none but he and Balder will ever know.

Balder’s horse, fully caparisoned, was ridden to the pyre and sacrificed there, in order that it would be able to bear its master in the world to come.

They lit the pyre. It burned, consuming the body of Balder and the body of Nanna, and his horse, and his possessions.

Balder’s body flamed like the sun.

Thor stood in front of the funeral pyre, and he held Mjollnir high. “I sanctify this pyre,” he proclaimed, darting grumpy looks at the giantess Hyrrokkin, who still did not, Thor felt, appear to be properly respectful.

Lit, one of the dwarfs, walked in front of Thor to get a better view of the pyre, and Thor kicked him irritably into the middle of the flames, which made Thor feel slightly better and made all the dwarfs feel much worse.

“I don’t like this,” said Thor testily. “I don’t like any of it one little bit. I hope Hermod the Nimble is sorting things out with Hel. The sooner Balder comes back to life, the better it will be for all of us.”

V

Hermod the Nimble rode for nine days and nine nights without stopping. He rode deeper and he rode through gathering darkness: from gloom to twilight to night to a pitch-black starless dark. All that he could see in the darkness was something golden glinting far ahead of him.

Closer he rode, and closer, and the light grew brighter. It was gold, and it was the thatch of the bridge across the Gjaller River, across which all who die must travel.

He slowed Sleipnir to a walk as they crossed the bridge, which swung and shook beneath them.

“What is your name?” asked a woman’s voice. “Who are your kin? What are you doing in the land of the dead?”

Hermod said nothing.

He reached the far end of the bridge, where a maiden stood. She was pale and very beautiful, and she looked at him as if she had never seen anything like him before. Her name was Modgud, and she guarded the bridge.

“Yesterday enough dead men to fill five kingdoms crossed this bridge, but you alone cause it to shake more than they did, though there were men and horses beyond all counting. I can see the red blood beneath your skin. You are not the color of the dead—they are gray, and green, and white, and blue. Your skin has life beneath it. Who are you? Why are you traveling to Hel?”

“I am Hermod,” he told her. “I am a son of Odin, and I am riding to Hel on Odin’s horse to find Balder. Have you seen him?”

“No one who saw him could ever forget it,” she said. “Balder the beautiful crossed this bridge nine days ago. He went to Hel’s great hall.”

“I thank you,” said Hermod. “That is where I also must go.”

“It is downward, and northward,” she told him. “Always go down, and keep traveling north. You will reach Hel’s gate.”

Hermod rode on. He rode northerly, and he followed the path down until he saw before him a huge high wall and the gates to Hel, which were higher than the tallest tree. Then he dismounted from his horse, and he tightened the girth strap. He remounted, and holding tight to the saddle, he urged Sleipnir faster and faster, and at the last it leapt, a jump like no horse has made before or since, and it cleared the gates of Hel and landed safely upon the other side, in Hel’s domain, where no living person can ever go.

Hermod rode to the great hall of the dead, dismounted, and walked inside. Balder, his brother, was seated at the head of the table, at the seat of honor. Balder was pale; his skin was the color of the world on a gray day, when there is no sun. He sat and drank the mead of Hel, and ate her food. When he saw Hermod he told him to sit beside him and spend the night with them at the table. On the other side of Balder was Nanna, his wife, and next to her, and not in the best of tempers, was a dwarf called Lit.

In Hel’s world, the sun never rises and the day can never begin.

Hermod looked across the hall, and he saw a woman of peculiar beauty. The right side of her body was the color of flesh, but the left-hand side of her body was dark and ruined, like that of a week-old corpse that you might find hanging from a tree in the forest or frozen into the snow, and Hermod knew that this was Hel, Loki’s daughter, whom the all-father had set to rule over the lands of the dead.

“I have come for Balder,” said Hermod to Hel. “Odin himself sent me. All things there are mourn him. You must give him back to us.”

Hel was impassive. One green eye stared at Hermod, and one sunken, dead eye. “I am Hel,” she said simply. “The dead come to me, and they do not return to the lands above. Why should I let Balder go?”

“All things mourn him. His death unites us all in misery, god and frost giant, dwarf and elf. The animals mourn him, and the trees. Even the metals weep. The stones dream that brave Balder will return to the lands that know the sun. Let him go.”

Hel said nothing. She watched Balder with her mismatched eyes. And then she sighed. “He is the most beautiful thing, and, I think, the best thing, ever to come to my realm. But if it is truly as you say, if all things mourn Balder, if all things love him, then I will give him back to you.”

Hermod threw himself at her feet. “That is noble of you. Thank you! Thank you, great queen!”

She looked down at him. “Get up,” she said. “I have not said I will give him back. This is your task, Hermod. Go and ask them. All the gods and the giants, all the rocks and the plants. Ask everything. If all things in the world weep for him and want him to return, I will give Balder back to the Aesir and the day. But if one creature will not cry or speaks against him, then he stays with me forever.”

Hermod got to his feet. Balder led him from the hall, and he gave Hermod Odin’s ring, Draupnir, to return to Odin, as evidence that Hermod had been to Hel. Nanna gave him a linen robe for Frigg and a golden ring for Fulla, Frigg’s handmaiden. Lit just grimaced and made rude gestures.

Hermod clambered back on Sleipnir. This time the gates of Hel were opened for him, as he left, and he retraced his steps. He crossed the bridge, and eventually he saw daylight once again.

In Asgard Hermod returned the arm-ring Draupnir to Odin, the all-father, and told him all that had happened and all that he had seen.

While Hermod was in the underworld, Odin had had a son to replace Balder; this son, named Vali, was the son of Odin and the goddess Rind. Before he was a day old, the baby found and slew Hod. So Balder’s death was avenged.

VI

The Aesir sent messengers across the world. The messengers of the Aesir rode like the wind, and they asked each thing they encountered if it wept for Balder, so that Balder could be free of Hel’s world. The women wept, and the men, the children, and the animals. Birds of the air wept for Balder, as did the earth, the trees, the stones—even the metals the messengers encountered wept for Balder, in the way that a cold iron sword will weep when you take it from the freezing cold into the sunlight and warmth.

All things wept for Balder.

The messengers were returning from their mission, triumphant and overjoyed. Balder would soon be back among the Aesir.

They rested on a mountain, on a ledge beside a cave, and they ate their food and drank their mead, and they joked and they laughed.

“Who is that?” called a voice from inside the cave, and an elderly giantess came out. There was something vaguely familiar about her, but none of the messengers was entirely certain what it was. “I am Thokk,” she said, which means “gratitude.” “Why are you here?”

“We have asked each thing there is if it would weep for Balder, who is dead. Beautiful Balder, killed by his blind brother. For each of us misses Balder as we would miss the sun in the sky, were it never to shine again. And each of us weeps for him.”

The giantess scratched her nose, cleared her throat, and spat onto the rock.

“Old Thokk won’t weep for Balder,” she said bluntly. “Alive or dead, old Odin’s son brought me nothing but misery and aggravation. I’m glad he’s gone. Good riddance to bad rubbish. Let Hel keep him.”

Then she shuffled back into the darkness of her cave and was lost to sight.

The messengers returned to Asgard and told the gods what they had seen, and that they had failed in their mission, for there was one creature that did not weep for Balder and did not want him to return: an old giantess in a cave on a mountain.

And by then they had also realized who old Thokk reminded them of: she had moved and talked much like Loki, the son of Laufey.

“I expect it was really Loki in disguise,” said Thor. “Of course it was Loki. It’s always Loki.”

Thor hefted his hammer, Mjollnir, and gathered a group of the gods to go looking for Loki, to take their revenge, but the crafty troublemaker was nowhere to be seen. He was hiding, far from Asgard, hugging himself in glee at his own cleverness and waiting for the fuss to die away.