Balder

Balder's death is portrayed in this illustration from an 18th century Icelandic manuscript.

Balder (Old Norse Baldr, modern Icelandic and Faroese Baldur, Balder is the name in modern Norwegian, Swedish and Danish and an anglicized form) is, in Norse Mythology, the god of innocence, beauty, joy, purity, and peace, and is Odin's second son. His wife is called Nanna and his son Forseti. Balder had a ship, the largest ever built, named Hringhorni, and a hall, called Breidablik. Phol may have been a German name for Balder, based on the second Merseburg charm, where the same person seems to be referred to as Phol and Balder.

The Prose Edda

File:Tripleurospermum perforatum 20041012 2572.jpg

Balder's brow.

In the Gylfaginning section of Snorri Sturluson's Prose Edda Balder is described as follows.

Annarr sonr Óðins er Baldr, ok er frá honum gott at segja. Hann er svá fagr álitum ok bjartr svá at lýsir af honum, ok eitt gras er svá hvítt at jafnat er til Baldrs brár. Þat er allra grasa hvítast, ok þar eptir máttu marka fegrð hans bæði á hár ok á líki. Hann er vitrastr ása ok fegrst talaðr ok líknsamastr. En sú náttúra fylgir honum at engi má haldask dómr hans. Hann býr þar sem heita Breiðablik, þat er á himni. Í þeim stað má ekki vera óhreint[.] - Text of T

The second son of Odin is Baldr, and good things are to be said of him. He is best, and all praise him; he is so fair of feature, and so bright, that light shines from him. A certain herb is so white that it is likened to Baldr's brow; of all grasses it is whitest, and by it thou mayest judge his fairness, both in hair and in body. He is the wisest of the Æsir, and the fairest-spoken and most gracious; and that quality attends him, that none may gainsay his judgments. He dwells in the place called Breidablik, which is in heaven; in that place may nothing unclean be[.] - Brodeur's translation

Apart from this gushing description Balder is known primarily for the myth surrounding his death. His death is seen as the first in the chain of events which will ultimately lead to the destruction of the gods at Ragnarok. Balder will be reborn in the new world, however, as foretold in the Völuspá. With this resurrection in mind, he is classified as a life-death-rebirth deity.

Due to perceived similarities, Balder is sometimes associated with Christ in art, as is clearly emphasized in this illustration of Baldrs draumar (1893).

He had a dream of his own death (or his mother had the same dreams). Since dreams were usually prophetic, this depressed him, and his mother Frigg made every object on earth vow never to hurt Balder. All but one, an insignificant weed called the mistletoe, made this vow. Frigg had thought it too unimportant and nonthreatening to bother asking it to make the vow (alternatively, it seemed too young to swear). When Loki, the mischief-maker, heard of this, he made a magical spear from this plant (in some later versions, an arrow). He hurried to the place where the gods were indulging in their new pastime of hurling objects at Balder, which would bounce off without harming him. Loki gave the spear to Balder's brother, the blind god Höðr, who then inadvertently killed his brother with it. For this act, Odin and Rind had a child named Váli, who was born solely to punish Höðr, who was slain.

Balder was ceremonially burnt upon his ship, Hringhorni, the largest of all ships. As he was carried to the ship, Odin whispered in his ear. This was to be a key riddle asked by Odin (in disguise) of the giant Vafthruthnir (and which was, of course, unanswerable) in the Vafthruthnismal (the riddle also appears in the riddles of Gestumblindi in Hervarar saga). The dwarf Litr was kicked by Thor into the funeral fire and burnt alive. Nanna, Balder's wife, also threw herself on the funeral fire to await the end of Ragnarok when she would be reunited with her husband (alternatively, she died of grief). Balder's horse with all its trappings was also burned on the pyre. The ship was set to sea by Hyrrokin, a giantess, who came riding on a wolf and gave the ship such a push that fire flashed from the rollers and all the earth shook.

Upon Frigg's entreaties, delivered through the messenger Hermod, Hel promised to release Balder from the underworld if all objects alive and dead would weep for him. And all did, except a giantess, Thokk, who refused to mourn the slain god. And thus Balder had to remain in the underworld, not to emerge until after Ragnarok, when he and his brother Höðr would be reconciled and rule the new earth together with Thor's sons.

When the gods discovered that the giantess had been Loki in disguise, they hunted him down and bound him to three rocks. Then they tied a serpent above him, the venom of which dripped onto his face. His wife Sigyn gathered the venom in a bowl, but from time to time she had to turn away to empty it, at which point the poison would drip onto Loki, who writhed in pain, thus causing earthquakes. He would free himself, however, in time to attack the gods at Ragnarok.

The Poetic Edda

Loki tricks Höðr into shooting Balder.

In the Elder Edda the tragic tale of Balder is hinted at rather than told at length. Among the visions which the Norse Sibyl sees and describes in the weird prophecy known as the Völuspá is one of the fatal mistletoe. "I behold," says she, "Fate looming for Balder, Woden's son, the bloody victim. There stands the Mistletoe slender and delicate, blooming high above the ground. Out of this shoot, so slender to look on, there shall grow a harmful fateful shaft. Hod shall shoot it, but Frigga in Fen-hall shall weep over the woe of Wal-hall." Yet looking far into the future the Sibyl sees a brighter vision of a new heaven and a new earth, where the fields unsown shall yield their increase and all sorrows shall be healed; then Balder will come back to dwell in Odin's mansions of bliss, in a hall brighter than the sun, shingled with gold, where the righteous shall live in joy for ever more.

Gesta Danorum

Writing about the end of the 12th century, the old Danish historian Saxo Grammaticus tells the story of Balder in a form which professes to be historical. According to him, Balderus and Høtherus were rival suitors for the hand of Nanna, daughter of Gewar, King of Norway. Now Balderus was a demigod and common steel could not wound his sacred body. The two rivals encountered each other in a terrific battle. Though Odin and Thor and the rest of the gods fought for Balderus, he was defeated and fled away, and Høtherus married the princess. Nevertheless Balderus took heart of grace and again met Høtherus in a stricken field. But he fared even worse than before. Høtherus dealt him a deadly wound with a magic sword, which he had received from Miming, the satyr of the woods; and after lingering three days in pain Balderus died of his injury and was buried with royal honours in a barrow.

Chronicon Lethrense and Annales Lundenses

There are also two less known Danish Latin chronicles, the Chronicon Lethrense and the Annales Lundenses of which the latter is included in the former. These two sources provide a second euhemerized account of Höðr's slaying of Balder.

It relates that Hother was the king of the Saxons and son of Hothbrod and the daughter of Hadding. Hother first slew Othen's (i.e. Odin) son Balder in battle and then chased Othen and Thor. Finally, Othen's son Both killed Hother. Hother, Balder, Othen and Thor were incorrectly considered to be gods.

Beowulf

In Beowulf Balder appears as the geatish prince Herebeald, who is killed by his brother Hæþcyn (Höðr). The king Hreðel replaces Odin as the grieving father.

Balder in place names

There are few place names in Scandinavia that contains the name Balder. The most certain and notable one is the (former) parishname Baldishol in Hedmark county, Norway: "a Balldrshole" 1356 (where the last element is hóll m "mound; small hill"). Others may be (in Norse forms) Baldrsberg in Vestfold county, Baldrsheimr in Hordaland county Baldrsnes in Sør-Trøndelag county and the fjord and municipality Balsfjord in Troms county.

Analogues

The legendary death of Balder resembles the legendary death of the Persian hero Esfandyar in the epic Shahnameh. In Finnish mythology, Lemminkäinen shares just the same kind of fate as Balder: to be killed by a blind one at the feast of gods. Balder has also been likened to Jesus, as C. S. Lewis did when he said he "loved Balder before Christ." Balder, a god of light, shares some of Jesus' traits as a youthful "dying and rising" god, who returns after Ragnarok, the end of the world (comparable to the Christian Apocalypse) to usher in a new era of peace.

Balder's brows

In Scandinavian, the Scentless Mayweed (Matricaria perforata) is named Balder's brows because of its whiteness.

Modern popular culture

Balder has been the basis of various works of art and appears irregularly in modern popular culture.

References
ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

Brodeur, Arthur Gilchrist (transl.) (1916). The Prose Edda by Snorri Sturluson. New York: The American-Scandinavian Foundation. Available online at http://www.northvegr.org/lore/prose/index.php.
Eysteinn Björnsson (ed.). Snorra-Edda: Formáli & Gylfaginning : Textar fjögurra meginhandrita. 2005. http://www.hi.is/~eybjorn/gg/

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