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Updated: May 7, 2025
This last theory is too ingenious to be credible; and with regard to the third, there is nothing essentially Christian in the chief features of the legend, while the solar idea leaves too much unexplained. Odin questions the Sibyl as to the meaning of Baldr's dreams: Odin. Sibyl. "Here the mead, clear drink, stands brewed for Baldr; the shields are spread. The sons of the Aesir are too merry."
The German theory that Baldr could only be killed by his own sword, which was therefore disguised by enchantment and used against him, and that the Icelandic writers misunderstood this to mean a mistletoe sprig, is far-fetched and romantic, and crumbles at a touch. For if, as it is claimed, the Icelanders had no mistletoe, why should they introduce it into a story to which it did not belong?
The larger part deals with heroic genealogies, but there are scanty allusions to Baldr, Frey, Heimdal, Loki's children, and Thor, and a Christian reference to a God who shall come after Ragnarök "when Odin shall meet the wolf." It tells nothing new.
In Lokasenna Frigg says: "If I had a son like Baldr here in Oegi's halls, thou shouldst not pass out from the sons of the Aesir, but be slain here in thy anger"; to which Loki replies, "Wilt thou that I speak more ill words, Frigg? I am the cause that thou wilt never more see Baldr ride into the hall."
The chief theories advanced are: That it is the oldest part of Norse mythology, and of ritual origin; that Baldr is really a hero transformed into a God; that the legend is a solar myth with or without Christian colouring; that it is entirely borrowed from Mediæval Greek and Christian sources.
Or, in the words of one of their own poets: "Then unsown the swath shall flourish and back come Baldr; With him Hoder shall dwell in Hropter's palace, Shrines of gods the great and holy, There the just shall joy forever, And in pleasure pass the ages." The well-known prediction of the Sibyl of Cumæ bears testimony to the same expectation of mankind.
As Saxo's references to the old Gods are made in much the same sympathetic tone as that adopted by Old Testament writers towards heathen deities, his testimony on mythological questions is of the less value. The Mistletoe. It seems incredible that any writers should turn to the travesty of the Baldr story given in the almost worthless saga of Hromund Gripsson in support of a theory.
Baldr, one of the sons of Woden, had passed away, but prophecy promised that he should return to deliver mankind from sorrow and from death. "When the twilight of the gods should have passed away, then amid prodigies and the crash and decay of a wicked world, in glory and joy he should return, and a glorious kingdom should be renewed."
Nanna has nothing to do with the story. The connexion with the hierarchy of the Aesir seems external only, since Baldr has no apparent relation to the great catastrophe as have Odin, Thor, Frej, Tyr and Loki; this, then, would point to the independence of his myth.
The meeting-place of the Gods is by the World-Ash, Yggdrasil, on whose well-being the fate of Gods and men depends; at its root lies the World-Snake. The Gods have foreknowledge of their own doom, Ragnarök, the great fight when they shall meet Loki's children, the Wolf and the Snake; both sides will fall and the world be destroyed. An episode in the story is the death of Baldr. The Aesir.
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