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Updated: May 20, 2025
Then the messenger maidens looked at one another and said, "Surely our work is done." So they twined their arms round one another's waists, and set forth on the downward road to Helheim, there to claim Baldur from among the dead. After he had sent forth his messenger maidens, Odin had seated himself on the top of Air Throne that he might see how the earth received his message.
That shall he have if he will ride to Hel, and seek Baldur, and offer Hela a reward if she will let Baldur come home to Asgard." Hermod the nimble, Odin's lad, said he would make the journey. So he mounted Odin's horse, Sleipner, and went his way. The gods took Baldur's body down to the sea-shore, where stood Hringhorn, Baldur's vessel, the biggest in the world.
Every day the Dwellers in Asgard went to her garden Odin and Thor, Hödur and Baldur, Tyr and Heimdall, Vidar and Vali, with Frigga, Freya, Nanna, and Sif. There was no one to pluck the apples of their tree. And a change began to come over the Gods and Goddesses. They no longer walked lightly; their shoulders became bent; their eyes no longer were as bright as dewdrops.
"There is an art, Baldur, an art that was one of the lost arts of Babylon until now, one based, as are all the arts, on the senses. Perfume the poor, neglected nose must have its revenge. It has outlived the other senses in the æsthetic field." "What of the palate you have forgotten that. Cookery, too, is a fine art," he ventured. His smile irritated her.
As in the legends of Troy and Iceland, so also in the Nibelungen-lied, the story centres on a young hero glowing with beauty and victory, and possessed of loftiness of character; but who meets with an early and untimely death. Such is Baldur the Beautiful of Iceland, and such, also, are Hector and Achilles of Troy.
The children crowded upon the doorsteps, or sat down at the corners of the streets, crying as if their own mothers were dead. The Valkyrior passed on. "Baldur is dead!" they said to the empty fields; and straightway the grass and the wild field-flowers shed tears. "Baldur is dead!" said the messenger maidens to the rocks and stones; and the very stones began to weep.
In all the palaces of the City of the Gods little Hnossa was made welcome: in Fensalir, the Halls of Mists, where Frigga, the wife of Odin All-Father, sat spinning with golden threads; in Breidablik, where Baldur, the Well Beloved, lived with his fair wife, the young Nanna; in Bilskirnir, the Winding House, where Thor and Sif lived; and in Odin's own palace Valaskjalf, that was all roofed over with silver shields.
"Take it out, then, my son, and let me look at it," replied Frigga. "But I fear, mother, that if I do it will cover the whole earth." Then Frigga laid her hand upon the heart of her son that she might feel the shadow's shape. Her brow became clouded as she felt it; her parted lips grew pale, and she cried out, "Oh! Baldur, my beloved son! the shadow is the shadow of death!"
I think they should have stories of death coming in heroic form, as when a man or woman dies for a great cause, in which he has opportunity of admiring courage, devotion and unselfishness; or of death coming as a result of treachery, such as we find in the death of Baldur, the death of Siegfried, and others, so that children may learn to abhor such deeds; but also a fair proportion of stories dealing with death that comes naturally, when our work is done, and our strength gone, which has no more tragedy than the falling of a leaf from the tree.
I went down to the floor below with him and got him my lighter gas-projector and a couple of spare fills for it, and found the bottle of Baldur honey-rum that Dad had been sure was around somewhere. I was kind of doubtful about that, and he noticed my hesitation in giving it to him and laughed. "Don't worry, Walt," he said. "This is strictly for protective coloration and odoration.
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