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The Norns distribute life and govern fate, and nothing can change their decision. The dwelling in heaven of the Aesir or gods is called Asgard. In its middle was the field of Ida, the gathering-place of the gods, with Odin's throne, Lidskialv, from which he views the whole world. Odin is the highest and the oldest of the gods, and all the others honor him as their father. Odin's hall is Valhalla.
Hermod rode back, and coming to Asgard related all he had seen and heard. Then the gods sent messengers over all the world seeking to get Baldur brought back again by weeping. All wept, men and living things, earth, stones, trees, and metals, all weeping as they do when they are subjected to heat after frost. Then the messengers came back again, thinking they had done their errand well.
"What recompense would you have, maiden?" asked Odin, smiling to see a Giant maid standing so boldly in Asgard. "A husband from amongst you, even as Gerda. And I myself must be let choose him." All laughed aloud at the words of Skadi. Then said Odin, laughing, "We will let you choose a husband from amongst us, but you must choose him by his feet."
Setting Baldur in the middle of the ring, these gods of Asgard would each throw something at him. If a stone struck him it would only glance off and never hurt. No arrow could pierce his skin. Nothing harmed him, and Baldur would smile as they played their rough play, for he knew that no one of them would work him any ill. But Loki was different from all the others in Asgard.
And often she thought, "What wonderful things the Three Giant Women would give me if I could bring myself to go to them on their mountaintop." Long ere this, when the wall around their City was not yet built, and when the Gods had set up only the court with their twelve seats and the Hall that was for Odin and the Hall that was for the Goddesses, there had come into Asgard Three Giant Women.
There are very primitive myths of the shaping of man out of two pieces of wood, of Night and Day as drivers of chariots and horses, of the sun and moon fleeing from wolves, and so on. A more poetic conception is the division of the world into Asgard, the garden of the Æsir; Midgard, the world of man; and Utgard, the world outside.
And still the sun and the moon, Sol and Mani, are followed by the wolves of Jötunheim." Such wonders did Heimdall with the Golden Teeth tell Hnossa, the youngest of the Dwellers in Asgard.
In a deep ravine by the side of a roaring torrent, he built himself a house of iron and stone, and placed a door on each of its four sides, so that he could see whatever passed around him. There, for many winters, he lived in lonely solitude, planning with himself how he might baffle the gods, and regain his old place in Asgard.
But after the Three Giant Women came the Gods began to value gold and to hoard it. They played with it no more. And the happy innocence of their first days departed from them. At last the Three were banished from Asgard. The Gods turned their thoughts from the hoarding of gold, and they built up their City, and they made themselves strong.
Sadly he rode back to Asgard, and in silent grief the gods heard his tale; for they knew that brightness was gone forever from the abode of the gods that Balder the beautiful should return no more. This story of Balder is one of those myths which were invented to explain natural happenings.
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