Norse Mythology(44)

Balder’s face shone like the sun: he was so beautiful that he illuminated any place he entered. Balder was Odin’s second son, and he was loved by his father, and by all things. He was the wisest, the mildest, the most eloquent of all the Aesir. He would pronounce judgment, and all would be impressed by his wisdom and his fairness. His home, the hall called Breidablik, was a place of joy and music and knowledge.

Balder’s wife was Nanna, and he loved her and only her. Their son, Forsete, was growing to become as wise a judge as his father. There was nothing wrong with Bal-der’s life or his world, save only one thing.

Balder had bad dreams.

He dreamed of worlds ending, and of the sun and the moon being eaten by a wolf. He dreamed of pain and death without end. He dreamed of darkness, of being trapped. Brothers slew brothers in his dreams, and nobody could trust anyone else. In his dreams, a new age would come upon the world, an age of storm and of murder. Balder would wake from these dreams in tears, troubled beyond all telling.

Balder went to the gods and he told them of his nightmares. None of them knew what to make of the dreams, and they too were troubled, all but one of them.

When Loki heard Balder talk of his bad dreams, Loki smiled.

Odin set out to find the cause of his son’s dreams. He put on his gray cloak and his broad-brimmed hat, and when folk asked his name, he said he was Wanderer, son of Warrior. Nobody knew the answers to his questions, but they told him of a seer, a wise woman, who understood all dreams. She could have helped him, they said, but she was long dead.

At the end of the world was the wise woman’s grave. Beyond it, to the east, was the realm of the dead who had not died in battle, ruled over by Hel, Loki’s daughter by the giantess Angrboda.

Odin traveled east, and he stopped when he reached the grave.

The all-father was the wisest of the Aesir, and he had given his eye for more wisdom.

He stood by the grave at the end of the world, and in that place he invoked the darkest of runes and called on old powers, long forgotten. He burned things, and he said things, and he charmed and he demanded. The storm wind whipped at his face, and then the wind died and a woman stood before him on the other side of the fire, her face in the shadows.

“It was a hard journey, coming back from the land of the dead,” she told him. “I’ve been buried here for such a long time. Rain and snow have fallen on me. I do not know you, man-who-raised-me. What do they call you?”

“They call me Wanderer,” said Odin. “Warrior was my father. Tell me the news from Hel.”

The dead wise woman stared at him. “Balder is coming to us,” she told him. “We are brewing mead for him. There will be despair in the world above, but in the world of the dead there will be only rejoicing.”

Odin asked her who would kill Balder, and her answer shocked him. He asked who would avenge Balder’s death, and her answer puzzled him. He asked who would mourn Balder, and she stared at him across her own grave, as if she were seeing him for the first time.

“You are not Wanderer,” she said. Her dead eyes flickered, and there was expression on her face. “You are Odin, who was sacrificed by himself to himself so long ago.”

“And you are no wise woman. You are she who was in life Angrboda, Loki’s lover, mother to Hel, to Jormungundr, the Midgard serpent, and to Fenris Wolf,” said Odin.

The dead giantess smiled. “Ride home, little Odin,” she told him. “Run away, run back to your hall. No one will come to see me now until my husband, Loki, escapes from his bonds and returns to me, and Ragnarok, the doom of the gods, tearing all asunder, approaches.”

And then there was nothing in that place but shadows.

Odin left with his heart heavy, and with much to think about. Even the gods cannot change destiny, and if he was to save Balder he would have to do it with cunning, and he would need help. There was one other thing that the dead giantess had said that disturbed him.

Why did she talk about Loki escaping his bonds? wondered Odin. Loki is not bound. And then he thought, Not yet.





II


Odin kept his own counsel, but he told Frigg, his wife, mother of the gods, that Balder’s dreams were true dreams, and that there were those who meant their favorite son harm.

Frigg thought. Practical as ever, she said, “I do not believe it. I shall not believe it. There is nothing that despises the sun and the warmth and the life it brings the earth, and by the same token there is nothing that hates my son Balder the beautiful.” And she set out to ensure that this was so.

She walked the earth and exacted an oath from each thing that she encountered never to harm Balder the beautiful. She spoke to fire, and it promised it would not burn him; water gave its oath never to drown him; iron would not cut him, nor would any of the other metals. Stones promised never to bruise his skin. Frigg spoke to trees, to beasts, and to birds and to all things that creep and fly and crawl, and each creature promised that its kind would never hurt Balder. The trees agreed, each after its kind, oak and ash, pine and beech, birch and fir, that their wood could never be used to hurt Balder. She conjured diseases and spoke to them, and each of the diseases and infirmities that can hurt or wound a person agreed that it too would never touch Balder.

Nothing was too insignificant for Frigg to ask, save only the mistletoe, a creeping plant that lives on other trees. It seemed too small, too young, too insignificant, and she passed it by.