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"I hear you, Balder," said Gnulemah at length, tremulously, while her blank eyes rested on his face, "but I cannot see you. My lamp must have gone out. Will not you light it for me?" Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord: I will repay! The storm-cloud moved eastward and was dispersed.
And of all who dwelt in Asgard or ever gained admission there, Loki was most hated. Clever as he was, he used his cleverness to harass the other gods and to make them wretched, and often he attempted real crimes against them. It was natural enough that Loki, slighted and frowned upon, should hate Balder the beautiful, even though Balder himself had never spoken an unkind word to him.
But in good time she heard of King Olaf the Glorious, and of his great wealth and his prowess, and of how in his person he was so tall and handsome, that men could only compare him with Balder the Beautiful. And now she deemed that she had at last discovered one whose magnificence would match with her own.
For Balder, having charged his imagination with castles, warlike chieftains, and beautiful princesses, had finally arrived at the conclusion that the stone house was an enchanter's castle; the figure he had seen, an imprisoned lady; himself, a knight-errant bound to rescue her and give the wicked enchanter his deserts.
"No my uncle neither had nor expected children, as far as I know!" "Thor did not see her, Gnulemah?" "Gnulemah? how should he have seen her?" exclaimed Balder, in surprise. "Then her mystery remains!" said Manetho, looking up. He had perhaps doubted whether any suspicion of who Gnulemah really was had found its way to the young man's mind. The latter's reception of his question reassured him.
But that antiquity vouches for it, it were quite against common belief to think that men prevailed against gods. As for Balder, he took to flight and was saved.
The transcendent cunning on which he had prided himself, as regarded his plan of educating Gnulemah, had amounted to little more than imbecile inaction. As Manetho prostrated himself, and even touched the hem of Gnulemah's robe to his forehead, Balder looked to see her recoil; but she maintained a composure which argued her not unused to such homage.
Hermoder rides on; leaps Hell-gate, Hela's gate; does see Balder, and speak with him: Balder cannot be delivered. Inexorable! Hela will not, for Odin or any God, give him up. The beautiful and gentle has to remain there. His Wife had volunteered to go with him, to die with him. They shall forever remain there. He sends his ring to Odin; Nanna his wife sends her thimble to Frigga, as a remembrance.
Here, in this dark, chill place, was to be spoken the fate of Balder, bringer of light. Solemnly Odin chanted the awful charms that had power to raise the dead, and king of gods as he was, he started when the grave opened, and the prophetess, veiled in mist, rose before him. "Who art thou?" she demanded in hollow, ghost-like tones.
Oddly, too, it was not to domestic comforts, the love of wife, children, and friends, nor yet to the absorbing duties of a profession, that Balder looked for a shield against inward trouble. Hope held him no more than fear; his happiness must consist in freedom from both.
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