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So he assumed the form of a woman, and set out to Fensalir to Frigga. Frigga asked if the stranger knew what the gods did when they met. He answered that they all shot at Baldur and he was not hurt. "No weapon, nor tree may hurt Baldur," answers Frigga, "I have taken an oath of them all not to do so." "What," said the pretended woman, "have all things then sworn to spare Baldur?"
One of the oldest myths of the Teutonic race is found in the great national epic of the Nibelungen Lied, which dates back to the prehistoric era when Wotan, Frigga, Thor, Loki, and the other gods and goddesses were worshipped in the German forests.
Loki did it!" they said at last in confused, hoarse whispers, and they looked from one to another, upon Odin, upon Frigga, upon the shadow which they saw before them, and which they felt within. "Loki did it!
In those times the Gods lived, Odin and Thor, Hödur and Baldur, Tyr and Heimdall, Vidar and Vali, as well as Loki, the doer of good and the doer of evil. And the beautiful Goddesses were living then, Frigga, Freya, Nanna, Iduna, and Sif.
Hastening away, he disguised himself as an old woman and hobbled off to Fensalir, the mansion of Frigga. "Do you know," said this old woman, entering the room where Frigga sat spinning, "that the gods and heroes are playing a very dangerous game? They are hurling all sorts of things at your son Balder, who stands in their midst." "That is not a dangerous game," replied Frigga, smiling serenely.
And when they looked upon one another they saw the change. Age was coming upon the Dwellers in Asgard. They knew that the time would come when Frigga would be gray and old; when Sif's golden hair would fade; when Odin would no longer have his clear wisdom, and when Thor would not have strength enough to raise and fling his thunderbolts.
"All things," replied Frigga, "except one little shrub that grows on the eastern side of Valhalla, and is called Mistletoe, and which I thought too young and feeble to crave an oath from." As soon as Loki heard this he went away, and resuming his natural shape, cut off the mistletoe, and repaired to the place where the gods were assembled.
Frigga, his mother, sends Hermoder to seek or see him: nine days and nine nights he rides through gloomy deep valleys, a labyrinth of gloom; arrives at the Bridge with its gold roof: the Keeper says, "Yes, Balder did pass here; but the Kingdom of the Dead is down yonder, far towards the North."
"It cannot be there," said Frigga, turning away her head resolutely, and folding her hands before her. But Odin looked at Baldur, and saw how it was. The hands pressed to the heavy heart, the beautiful brow grown dim.
But his queen Frigga, desiring to go forth more beautified, called smiths, and had the gold stripped from the statue. Odin hanged them, and mounted the statue upon a pedestal, which by the marvellous skill of his art he made to speak when a mortal touched it.
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