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Updated: June 4, 2025
But when Balder, the Shining One, smiled kindly upon him from above, or when Bragi played his harp by the seashore, or sailed his ship on the waters, the heart of the bluff old king was touched with a kindly feeling, and he tried hard to curb his ungentle passions, and to cease his blustering ways.
"If that be true, then we may sup with him in his gold-lit hall." And all this time Bragi slept in the hold, and no one dared awaken him. Faster and faster the ship was carried round the seething pool. The flying spray was frozen in the air; and it filled the masts with snow, and pattered like heavy hail upon the deck. The light of the sun seemed shut out, and darkness closed around.
But this was only part of the truth: for wherever there was loveliness or beauty, or things noble and pure, there was Bragi; and his wondrous power in music and song was but the outward sign of a blameless soul.
In the old heathen days this cup was called the "Bragi bowl," and the vows were made in the names of the Asir, and mostly ended in fighting before the year was over. We kept the old name yet, but now the vows were made in the name of all the Saints, and if Ina or any other made one it was sure to be of such sort that it would lead to some worthy deed before long, wrought in all Christian wise.
By main force he seized hold of the silent Vidar, who had come from the forest solitudes to be present at the feast, and dragged him away from the table, and seated himself in his place. Then, as he quaffed the foaming mead, he flung out taunts and jeers and hard words to all who sat around, but chiefly to Bragi the Wise and Sif, the beautiful wife of Thor.
The sun went down, and the gray twilight hung over sea and land, and the red glow in the castle-moat grew redder still; and yet every thing slept. Then Bragi ended his song, and the strings of his harp were mute. "Music has no charms to waken from sleep like that," he said.
But she was glad to know that the precious box was safely locked at home, and that the golden key was still at her girdle. Time passed; and I fear that Idun would have been forgotten by all, save her husband Bragi, had not the gods begun to feel the need of her apples.
He does so, and the Gods, who grow old and withered for want of her apples, force him to go and bring her back to Asgard. The poet of Eiriksmal, quoted above, alludes to the Baldr myth: Bragi, hearing the approach of Eirik and his host, asks "What is that thundering and tramping, as if Baldr were coming back to Odin's hall?"
Then, as he quaffed the foaming ale, he flung out taunts and jeers and hard words to all who sat around, but chiefly to Bragi the Wise. Then he turned to Sif, the beautiful wife of Thor, and began to twit her about her golden hair. "Oh, how handsome you were, when you looked at your bald head in the mirror that day! Oh, what music you made when your hands touched your smooth pate!
Idunn, the wife of Bragi, and a purely Norse creation, seems to be a double of Freyja; she, too, according to Snorri, is carried away by the giants and rescued by Loki. The golden apples which she is to keep till Ragnarök remind us of those which Frey offered to Gerd; and the gift of eternal youth, of which they are the symbols, would be appropriate enough to Freyja as an agricultural deity.
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