Baldr

The shining son of Odin, whose death foretells Ragnarök

The son of Odin and Frigg, the best and brightest of the gods, whose death is the turning point of Norse myth. Snorri says he is so fair that light shines from him, the wisest, most eloquent and most merciful of the Æsir, though none of his judgements can stand. When he dreamed of his death, Frigg made everything in the world swear not to harm him, except the young mistletoe. Loki put a sprig of it into the hand of his blind brother Höd, and Baldr fell; Hel would have let him go if everything wept for him, but one giantess would not. He will return after Ragnarök to the renewed world.

Family

Parents

Odin Snorri, Gylfaginning 22

his second son, Snorri says
Frigg Snorri, Gylfaginning 49; Völuspá 33

took oaths from all things to spare him

Wife

Nanna Snorri, Gylfaginning 49

daughter of Nep; her heart broke at his funeral and she burned beside him

Desired

Nanna Saxo, Gesta Danorum, book III

here a king's daughter who refused Balderus and married Høtherus

Children

Forseti Grímnismál 15; Snorri, Gylfaginning 32

of Nanna; settles every dispute in his hall Glitnir

Brothers

Höd Snorri, Gylfaginning 49; Völuspá 32

blind; threw the mistletoe, and will come back with him after Ragnarök
Hermód Snorri, Gylfaginning 49

rode nine nights to Hel to ask for him back
Váli Baldrs draumar 11; Völuspá 32–33

a half-brother, born to avenge him; killed Höd at one night old

Rival

Høtherus Saxo, Gesta Danorum, book III

a human hero who wounded Balderus with a magic sword in a war over Nanna

Enemy

Loki Snorri, Gylfaginning 49; Lokasenna 28

found the mistletoe, guided the throw and, as Thökk, would not weep

His story

The dreams

Baldr dreamed ominous dreams, and the gods met in council. Odin saddled Sleipnir, rode down to the gate of Hel and woke a dead seeress from her grave. She told him that the benches below were decked and the mead brewed for Baldr, that Höd would kill him and that a son of Odin born to Rind would avenge him.

Baldrs draumar; at the end she recognises Odin, and he names her the mother of three giants

The mistletoe

Frigg took oaths from fire and water, iron and every metal, stones, earth, trees, sicknesses, beasts, birds, poisons and snakes that they would not harm Baldr, and the gods made a game of throwing things at him. Loki, disguised as a woman, learned from Frigg that she had passed over a young shoot of mistletoe west of Valhalla. He pulled it up, put it into blind Höd's hand and guided his aim, and Baldr fell dead.

Snorri, Gylfaginning 49, who calls it the greatest misfortune ever among gods and men; Völuspá 31–32

The funeral

The gods laid Baldr on his ship Hringhorni, but could not move it until the giantess Hyrrokkin came riding a wolf with snakes for reins and launched it with one push. Nanna died of grief and was laid beside him; Thor hallowed the pyre with his hammer and kicked into the fire a dwarf who ran in front of him; Odin laid his ring Draupnir on it.

Snorri, Gylfaginning 49; Úlf Uggason's Húsdrápa, about 985, describes the funeral procession and Hyrrokkin as carved in an Icelandic hall

Hermód's ride

Hermód rode Sleipnir nine nights through dark valleys to Hel, leapt her gate and found Baldr in the seat of honour. Hel agreed to let him go if everything in the world, living and dead, wept for him. Everything wept, as frost weeps in a thaw, except a giantess named Thökk in a cave, who said: “Let Hel hold what she has.”

Snorri, Gylfaginning 49, quoting Thökk's verse; this ending is found only in Snorri

The best of the gods

A god with one story

Snorri has only good to say of Baldr. He is the best of the gods and all praise him; he is so fair and bright that light shines from him, and the whitest of plants is called Baldr's brow. He is the wisest of the Æsir, the most eloquent and the most merciful, yet none of his judgements can stand. He lives in Breidablik, where nothing impure may be, with his wife Nanna, and their son Forseti settles disputes in a hall of gold and silver.

That is almost all. Baldr has no adventures, no quarrels and no journeys; he exists to die. His name probably meant “lord” or “prince”, like Old English bealdor, and the tenth-century Second Merseburg Charm, from Germany, mentions “Balder's foal”, which sprains its foot as Phol and Wodan ride into the woods, though it is not certain that the word there is a name at all.

The death of Baldr

The hinge of the mythology

The story of his death is told most fully by Snorri, and it is the hinge of the whole mythology. The gods cannot bring him back, although everything in the world but one weeps for him, and from then on the world runs down towards Ragnarök. The seeress of Völuspá sees it from far off:

I saw for Baldr, the bloodied god, Odin's child, his fate concealed; there stood grown, higher than the plains, slender and very fair, the mistletoe.

— *Völuspá* 31

The killer is his own brother, so the vengeance too must come from inside the family: Odin begets a new son, Váli, on Rind, and the child, one night old, his hands unwashed and his hair uncombed, kills Höd. The weeping fails because of a giantess in a cave whom, Snorri says, people took to be Loki, and the gods' punishment of Loki follows. Odin keeps one secret of that day: in Vafthrúdnismál he wins a contest of wisdom with a giant by asking what he whispered into his son's ear before Baldr was laid on the pyre, a question only Odin can answer.

Other tellings

Saxo, the scholars and the return

Saxo Grammaticus, writing in Denmark around 1200, tells a different story. His Balderus is a half-divine warrior, son of Othinus, who wants to marry the princess Nanna; she prefers the human hero Høtherus, and the two fight a war over her. Høtherus wins a magic sword and wounds Balderus, who dies three days later; Othinus then begets Bous on Rinda to avenge him. There is no mistletoe, no weeping and no Loki.

Scholars have read Baldr in many ways: James Frazer as a dying god of vegetation whose life lay in the mistletoe; others as a figure shaped by the Christ of the Christian North; John Lindow as the victim of a feud among the gods. The myth has its own ending. After Ragnarök, Völuspá says, the fields will bear unsown, every ill will be healed, and Baldr will come back, with Höd beside him, to live in Odin's halls.