(M82) A deity whose life might in a sense be said to be neither in heaven
nor on earth but between the two, was the Norse Balder, the good and
beautiful god, the son of the great god Odin, and himself the wisest,
mildest, best beloved of all the immortals. The story of his death, as it
is told in the younger or prose _Edda_, runs thus. Once on a time Balder
dreamed heavy dreams which seemed to forebode his death. Thereupon the
gods held a council and resolved to make him secure against every danger.
So the goddess Frigg took an oath from fire and water, iron and all
metals, stones and earth, from trees, sicknesses and poisons, and from all
four-footed beasts, birds, and creeping things, that they would not hurt
Balder. When this was done Balder was deemed invulnerable; so the gods
amused themselves by setting him in their midst, while some shot at him,
others hewed at him, and others threw stones at him. But whatever they
did, nothing could hurt him; and at this they were all glad, Only Loki,
the mischief-maker, was displeased, and he went in the guise of an old
woman to Frigg, who told him that the weapons of the gods could not wound
Balder, since she had made them all swear not to hurt him. Then Loki
asked, “Have all things sworn to spare Balder?” She answered, “East of
Walhalla grows a plant called mistletoe; it seemed to me too young to
swear.” So Loki went and pulled the mistletoe and took it to the assembly
of the gods. There he found the blind god Hother standing at the outside
of the circle. Loki asked him, “Why do you not shoot at Balder?” Hother
answered, “Because I do not see where he stands; besides I have no
weapon.” Then said Loki, “Do like the rest and shew Balder honour, as they
all do. I will shew you where he stands, and do you shoot at him with this
twig.” Hother took the mistletoe and threw it at Balder, as Loki directed
him. The mistletoe struck Balder and pierced him through and through, and
he fell down dead. And that was the greatest misfortune that ever befell
gods and men. For a while the gods stood speechless, then they lifted up
their voices and wept bitterly. They took Balder’s body and brought it to
the sea-shore. There stood Balder’s ship; it was called Ringhorn, and was
the hugest of all ships. The gods wished to launch the ship and to burn
Balder’s body on it, but the ship would not stir. So they sent for a
giantess called Hyrrockin. She came riding on a wolf and gave the ship
such a push that fire flashed from the rollers and all the earth shook.
Then Balder’s body was taken and placed on the funeral pile upon his ship.
When his wife Nanna saw that, her heart burst for sorrow and she died. So
she was laid on the funeral pile with her husband, and fire was put to it.
Balder’s horse, too, with all its trappings, was burned on the pile.(256)
(M83) In the older or poetic _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 _Voluspa_ 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.”(257) 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.(258)
(M84) Writing about the end of the twelfth century, the old Danish
historian Saxo Grammaticus tells the story of Balder in a form which
professes to be historical. According to him, Balder and Hother were rival
suitors for the hand of Nanna, daughter of Gewar, King of Norway. Now
Balder was a demigod and common steel could not wound his sacred body. The
two rivals encountered each other in a terrific battle, and though Odin
and Thor and the rest of the gods fought for Balder, yet was he defeated
and fled away, and Hother married the princess. Nevertheless Balder took
heart of grace and again met Hother in a stricken field. But he fared even
worse than before; for Hother 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 Balder died of his hurt and was buried with
royal honours in a barrow.(259)
(M85) Whether he was a real or merely a mythical personage, Balder was
worshipped in Norway. On one of the bays of the beautiful Sogne Fiord,
which penetrates far into the depths of the solemn Norwegian mountains,
with their sombre pine-forests and their lofty cascades dissolving into
spray before they reach the dark water of the fiord far below, Balder had
a great sanctuary. It was called Balder’s Grove. A palisade enclosed the
hallowed ground, and within it stood a spacious temple with the images of
many gods, but none of them was worshipped with such devotion as Balder.
So great was the awe with which the heathen regarded the place that no man
might harm another there, nor steal his cattle, nor defile himself with
women. But women cared for the images of the gods in the temple; they
warmed them at the fire, anointed them with oil, and dried them with
cloths.(260)
(M86) It might be rash to affirm that the romantic figure of Balder was
nothing but a creation of the mythical fancy, a radiant phantom conjured
up as by a wizard’s wand to glitter for a time against the gloomy
background of the stern Norwegian landscape. It may be so; yet it is also
possible that the myth was founded on the tradition of a hero, popular and
beloved in his lifetime, who long survived in the memory of the people,
gathering more and more of the marvellous about him as he passed from
generation to generation of story-tellers. At all events it is worth while
to observe that a somewhat similar story is told of another national hero,
who may well have been a real man. In his great poem, _The Epic of Kings_,
which is founded on Persian traditions, the poet Firdusi tells us that in
the combat between Rustem and Isfendiyar the arrows of the former did no
harm to his adversary, “because Zerdusht had charmed his body against all
dangers, so that it was like unto brass.” But Simurgh, the bird of God,
shewed Rustem the way he should follow in order to vanquish his
redoubtable foe. He rode after her, and they halted not till they came to
the sea-shore. There she led him into a garden, where grew a tamarisk,
tall and strong, and the roots thereof were in the ground, but the
branches pierced even unto the sky. Then the bird of God bade Rustem break
from the tree a branch that was long and slender, and fashion it into an
arrow, and she said, “Only through his eyes can Isfendiyar be wounded. If,
therefore, thou wouldst slay him, direct this arrow unto his forehead, and
verily it shall not miss its aim.” Rustem did as he was bid; and when next
he fought with Isfendiyar, he shot the arrow at him, and it pierced his
eye, and he died. Great was the mourning for Isfendiyar. For the space of
one year men ceased not to lament for him, and for many years they shed
bitter tears for that arrow, and they said, “The glory of Iran hath been
laid low.”(261)
(M87) Whatever may be thought of an historical kernel underlying a
mythical husk in the legend of Balder, the details of the story suggest
that it belongs to that class of myths which have been dramatized in
ritual, or, to put it otherwise, which have been performed as magical
ceremonies for the sake of producing those natural effects which they
describe in figurative language. A myth is never so graphic and precise in
its details as when it is, so to speak, the book of the words which are
spoken and acted by the performers of the sacred rite. That the Norse
story of Balder was a myth of this sort will become probable if we can
prove that ceremonies resembling the incidents in the tale have been
performed by Norsemen and other European peoples. Now the main incidents
in the tale are two—first, the pulling of the mistletoe, and second, the
death and burning of the god; and both of them may perhaps be found to
have had their counterparts in yearly rites observed, whether separately
or conjointly, by people in various parts of Europe. These rites will be
described and discussed in the following chapters. We shall begin with the
annual festivals of fire and shall reserve the pulling of the mistletoe
for consideration later on.