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Updated: June 9, 2025
Then Odin asked who would be the slayer of Balder, and she answered that Hoder was the one who would send the shining Asa to the halls of Death. "Who will avenge Balder, and bring distress upon his slayer?" asked Odin. "A son of Earth but one day old shall be Balder's avenger. Go thou now home, Odin; for I know thou art not Valtam's son.
"By the hand of his blind brother Hoder shall he fall. And now let me rest." And the prophetess sank again into her tomb, leaving Odin with a heart more heavy and chill than the darkness which closed round him. Meanwhile Frigga had busied herself with a plan which her mother love had suggested.
Hoder, the blind king of the winter months, was Balder's brother, and as unlike him as darkness is unlike daylight. While one rejoiced, and was merry and cheerful, the other was low-spirited and sad. While one scattered sunshine and blessings everywhere, the other carried with him a sense of cheerlessness and gloom. Yet the brothers loved each other dearly.
It is thus that the Asa-folk, and all things living and lifeless, honor Balder. Hoder is the only one who hangs his head, and fears to do his part. Come, now, let me fit this little arrow in your bow, and then, as I point it, do you shoot. When you hear the gods laugh, you will know that your arrow has shown honor to the hero by refusing to hit him."
In his hand he carried a dart; but who could have guessed, to look at it, that it had been fashioned from the mistletoe on the Valhalla oak? Outside of the circle of the gods stood Hoder, Balder's blind brother, and there was no smile on his face. Loki approached him and asked craftily: "Why do you not join in the game?
Are you not afraid that Balder will think you are jealous of his good fortune if you take no part in this sport they have invented in his honor?" "Alas!" said poor Hoder, "I am left out of all the sports of the gods. How can I, with my sightless eyes, tell where Balder is? And you see that I have nothing in my hand. What, then, could I throw?"
After a time the vessel began to meet great ice-mountains in the sea, mountains which the Reifriesen, and old Hoder, the King of the winter months, had sent drifting down from the frozen land of the north. But these melted at the sound of Bragi's music and at the sight of Siegfried's radiant armor.
And of Baldur the bright shining god, joy of Asgard, slain in error by Höder his blind twin-brother; for whom all things on earth save one weep, and will weep, till in the last days he comes again. And of All-Father Odin himself, plucking out his right eye and bartering it for a draught of wisdom-giving water from Mirmir's magic well.
And then old Hoder, the king of the winter months, came blustering through the Rhine valley; and with him were the Reifriesen, the thieves that steal the daylight from the earth and the warmth from the sun. And they nipped the flowers, and withered the grass, and stripped the trees, and sealed up the rivers, and covered the earth with a white mantle of sorrow.
Among Matthew Arnold's Poems is one called "Balder Death" beginning thus: "So on the floor lay Balder dead; and round Lay thickly strewn swords, axes, darts and spears, Which all the Gods in sport had idly thrown At Balder, whom no weapon pierced or clave; But in his breast stood fixt the fatal bough Of mistletoe, which Lok the Accuser gave To Hoder, and unwitting Hoder threw; "Gainst that alone had Balder's life no charm.
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