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Updated: May 15, 2025
"Such a deed of violence must not stain the home of the gods. Moreover, Hoder did it all unwittingly. It was Loki who directed his aim, and we are all to blame that we allowed him to set foot on our playground." Bitter indeed was Hoder's grief, and he implored his heart-broken mother, Frigga, that he might be allowed to take Balder's place in dark Hela's realm.
"Everything," answered she, "excepting the little shrub mistletoe, which grows, you know, on the west side of Valhalla, and to which I said nothing, because I thought it was too young to swear." "Excellent!" thought Loki, and then he got up. "You're not going yet, are you?" said Frigga, stretching out her hand and looking up at last into the eyes of the old woman.
"Last year it might have been, but now all things have given me their solemn oath not to harm Balder." "Well, well, well," said the old woman, "isn't that wonderful? To think that any being should be so much beloved that everything should promise not to hurt him! You said EVERYTHING, did you not?" "Yes," replied Frigga. "That is, it really amounts to everything.
The Asyniur and the Vana were also Frigga, Freya, Iduna, Gerda, Skadi, Sif, and Nanna. Thor and Loki were not at the feast, for they had left Asgard together. In Frey's palace the vessels were of shining gold; they made light for the table and they moved of their own accord to serve those who were feasting. All was peace and friendship there until Loki entered the feast hall.
When Loki had left the presence of Frigga, he changed himself back to his proper shape and went straight to the west side of Valhalla, where the mistletoe grew. Then he opened his knife and cut off a large branch, saying these words, "Too young for Frigga's oaths, but not too weak for Loki's work." After which he set off for the Peacestead once more, the mistletoe in his hand.
Looking up to the stars and heaven, they saw the footsteps of the gods marked out in the bright path of the Milky Way; and in the Bear they hailed the war-chariot of the warrior's god. The great goddesses, too, Frigga and Freyja, were thoroughly old-fashioned domestic divinities.
"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!"
"And why is Baldur to be so honored," said he "that even steel and stone shall not hurt him?" Then Loki changed himself into a little, dark, bent old woman, with a stick, and hobbled away from the Peacestead to Frigga's crystal saloon. At the door he knocked with the stick. "Come in!" said the kind voice of Frigga, and Loki lifted the latch.
"No, no thing," murmured Frigga, still looking down and speaking half musingly to herself; "for all things have sworn to me that they will not." "Sworn!" exclaimed Loki, eagerly; "what is that you say? Has everything sworn then?"
Now when Frigga saw, from the other end of the hall, a little, bent, crippled old woman come hobbling up her crystal floor, she got up with true queenliness and met her halfway, holding out her hand and saying in the kindest manner, "Pray sit down, my poor old friend; for it seems to me that you have come from a great way off." "That I have, indeed," answered Loki in a tremulous, squeaking voice.
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