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Updated: May 7, 2025
Frazer's theory that the Baldr-myth is a relic of tree-worship and the ritual sacrifice of the God, Baldr being a tree-spirit whose soul is contained in the mistletoe. They are rather proofs of antiquity. Apparent contradictions whose explanation is forgotten often survive in tradition; the inventor of a new story takes care to make it consistent.
Worshipping, as the Vikings did, amongst others, the "fair white god Baldr of golden beauty," and accounting as base-born "hellskins" those of darker hue, it seems strange that they should so soon have taken to themselves Celtic wives. But we have seen that they came by sea and that no Norse women were allowed in Viking ships, and thus it was Celtic mothers alone that perpetuated the race.
Höd shot it, and Frigg wept in Fenhall over Valhall's woe." The following lines, on the chaining of Loki, suggest his complicity. Hyndluljod has one reference: "There were eleven Aesir by number when Baldr went down into the howe. Vali was his avenger and slew his brother's slayer." Besides these there is a fragment quoted by Snorri: "Thökk will weep dry tears at Baldr's funeral pyre.
Saxo's version of the Baldr story has been mentioned already. But Odin and Thor and all the Gods fight for him against his rival Hother, "so that it might be called a battle of Gods against men"; and Nanna's excuse to Baldr that "a God could not wed with a mortal," preserves a trace of his origin.
Ynglinga Saga says that Odin and the Aesir came to Norway from Asia; a statement due, of course, to a false etymology, though theories as to the origin of Norse mythology have been based on it. Tyr. Baldr. The Baldr theories are stated in the following authorities: Ritual origin: Frazer, The Golden Bough, vol. 3. Vegtamskvida.
Probably it does not; at all events, none of the old Aesir, according to the poems, are to survive, for Modi and Magni are not really Gods at all, Baldr, Höd and Vali belong to another myth, Hoeni had passed out of the hierarchy by his exchange with Njörd, and Vidar's origin is obscure. The Einherjar, the great champions or chosen warriors, are intimately connected with Ragnarök.
In Vafthrudnismal the only reference is Odin's question, "What said Odin in his son's ear when he mounted the pyre?" In Völuspa the Sibyl prophesies, "I saw doom threatening Baldr, the bleeding victim, the son of Odin. Grown high above the meadows stood the mistletoe, slender and fair. From this stem, which looked so slender, grew a fatal and dangerous shaft.
The æsir, the angels of the Scandinavian sky, are paler than the izeds. The figure of Baldr, the redeemer, faints beside that of Mithra. Valhalla, though perhaps less fatiguing than Garô-demâna, was more trite in its wassails than the latter in its hymns. What these abstractions lacked was not the Logos but the light.
But when it was full she poured the poison away, and meanwhile poison dropped on Loki, and he struggled so hard that all the earth shook; those are called earthquakes now." Völuspa inserts lines corresponding to this passage after the Baldr episode, and Snorri makes it a consequence of Loki's share in that event.
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