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Updated: June 16, 2025
The former unlovely garb had a sort of fitness to the blasted features; but so soon as she forsook that uncanny harmony and tried to be like other women, she became undesirably conspicuous. "The bridesmaid!" came to Balder's lips, but did not pass them. He would not hurt the poor creature's feelings by the betrayal of surprise or amusement. She was a woman, and Gnulemah was no more.
"It hurts us," said Odin, "that we should be forced to treat one of our own kind in this way. Perhaps even now tell us that you do regret your past wickedness, that you are sorry for the trouble you have caused the gods, that you grieve sometimes for Balder's death."
In other words, we may assume with some degree of probability that the myth of Balder's death was not merely a myth, that is, a description of physical phenomena in imagery borrowed from human life, but that it was at the same time the story which people told to explain why they annually burned a human representative of the god and cut the mistletoe with solemn ceremony.
We may hope that a more exact acquaintance with savage modes of thought will in time disclose this central mystery of primitive society, and will thereby furnish the clue, not only to totemism, but to the origin of the marriage system. LXVIII. The Golden Bough THUS the view that Balder's life was in the mistletoe is entirely in harmony with primitive modes of thought.
The poem of "Adam and Eve," "Rolf Krage," the first original Danish tragedy, "Balder's Death," and "The Fishermen," are his principal productions. "Rolf Krage" is the outpouring of a noble heart, in which the most generous and exalted sentiments revel in all the inexperience of youth. "Balder's Death" is a masterpiece of beauty, sentiment, and eloquence of diction.
The result will be to show that, in assuming this idea as the explanation of Balder's relation to the mistletoe, I assume a principle which is deeply engraved on the mind of primitive man. LXVI. The External Soul in Folk-Tales IN A FORMER part of this work we saw that, in the opinion of primitive people, the soul may temporarily absent itself from the body without causing death.
Then Balder's body was taken and placed on the funeral pile upon his ship. When his wife Nanna saw that, her heart burst for sorrow and she died. So she was laid on the funeral pile with her husband, and fire was put to it. Balder's horse, too, with all its trappings, was burned on the pile. Whether he was a real or merely a mythical personage, Balder was worshipped in Norway.
He had always lived in such a glow of brightness that no darkness had ever touched him; but one morning, after Idun and Brage had gone, Balder's face was sad and troubled. He walked slowly from room to room in his palace Breidablik, stainless as the sky when April showers have swept across it because no impure thing had ever crossed the threshold, and his eyes were heavy with sorrow.
Opening it, there were his toilet articles and all his other treasures, even the cherished miniature, not much the worse for their wetting. So there could no longer be any doubt that his uncle had come back. Where was he? That queer fancy about the clock stuck in Balder's head! Somehow or other it must be connected with Doctor Glyphic. The haversack, dropped at its foot, was direct evidence.
We may feel the presence of a spirit weighty, strong, deep, without understanding the how and why of impression. Only at critical moments, such as this in Balder's life, can we point out the joining lines. Balder's present attitude, viewed from whatever side, was no less irksome than ignoble. One misfortune was with diabolic ingenuity dovetailed into another.
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