Norse Mythology(46)

He heard wailing then, high and keen and awful, and he knew the voice. It was his mother who wailed.

“Balder, my son. Oh Balder, oh my son,” she wailed.

It was then that Hod knew his dart had hit home.

“How terrible. How sad. You have killed your brother,” said Loki. But he did not sound sad. He did not sound sad at all.





IV


Balder lay dead, pierced by the mistletoe dart. The gods gathered, weeping and tearing their garments. Odin said nothing, save only, “No vengeance will be taken on Hod. Not yet. Not right now. Not at this time. We are in a place of holy peace.”

Frigg said, “Who among you wants to win my good graces by going to Hel? Perhaps she will let Balder return to this world. Even Hel could not be so cruel as to keep him . . .” She thought for a moment. Hel was, after all, Loki’s daughter. “And we will offer her a ransom to give us Balder back. Is there one of you who is willing to travel to Hel’s kingdom? You might not return.”

The gods looked at each other. And then one of them raised his hand. This was Hermod, called the Nimble, Odin’s attendant, the fastest and the most daring of the young gods.

“I will go to Hel,” he said. “I will bring back Balder the beautiful.”

They brought forth Sleipnir, Odin’s stallion, the eight-legged horse. Hermod mounted it and prepared to ride down, ever down, to greet Hel in her high hall, where only the dead go.

As Hermod rode into darkness, the gods prepared Balder’s funeral. They took his corpse and they placed it on Hringhorn, Balder’s ship. They wanted to launch the ship and burn it, but they could not move it from the shore. They all pushed and heaved, even Thor, but the ship sat on the shore, unmoving. Only Balder had been able to launch his ship, and now he was gone.

The gods sent for Hyrrokkin the giantess, who came to them riding on an enormous wolf, with serpents for reins. She went to the prow of Balder’s ship and she pushed as hard as she could: she launched the ship, but her push was so violent that the rollers the ship was on burst into flame, and the earth shook, and the waves were terrifying.

“I ought to kill her,” said Thor, still stinging from his own failure to launch the ship, and he grasped the handle of Mjollnir, his hammer. “She shows disrespect.”

“You will do nothing of the kind,” said the other gods.

“I’m not happy about any of this,” said Thor. “I’m going to kill somebody soon, just to relieve the tension. You’ll see.”

Balder’s body was brought down the shingle, borne by four gods; eight legs took him past the crowd assembled there. Odin was foremost in the crowd of mourners, his ravens on each shoulder, and behind him the Valkyries and the Aesir. There were frost giants and mountain giants at Balder’s funeral; there were even dwarfs, the cunning craftsmen from beneath the ground, for all things that there were mourned the death of Balder.

Balder’s wife, Nanna, saw her husband’s body carried past. She wailed, and her heart gave out in her breast, and she fell dead onto the shore. They carried her to the funeral pyre, and they placed her body beside Balder’s. Out of respect, Odin placed his arm-ring Draupnir onto the pyre; this was the miraculous ring made for him by the dwarfs Brokk and Eitri, which every nine days would drip eight other rings of equal purity and beauty. Then Odin whispered a secret into Balder’s dead ear, and what Odin whispered none but he and Balder will ever know.

Balder’s horse, fully caparisoned, was ridden to the pyre and sacrificed there, in order that it would be able to bear its master in the world to come.

They lit the pyre. It burned, consuming the body of Balder and the body of Nanna, and his horse, and his possessions.

Balder’s body flamed like the sun.

Thor stood in front of the funeral pyre, and he held Mjollnir high. “I sanctify this pyre,” he proclaimed, darting grumpy looks at the giantess Hyrrokkin, who still did not, Thor felt, appear to be properly respectful.

Lit, one of the dwarfs, walked in front of Thor to get a better view of the pyre, and Thor kicked him irritably into the middle of the flames, which made Thor feel slightly better and made all the dwarfs feel much worse.

“I don’t like this,” said Thor testily. “I don’t like any of it one little bit. I hope Hermod the Nimble is sorting things out with Hel. The sooner Balder comes back to life, the better it will be for all of us.”





V


Hermod the Nimble rode for nine days and nine nights without stopping. He rode deeper and he rode through gathering darkness: from gloom to twilight to night to a pitch-black starless dark. All that he could see in the darkness was something golden glinting far ahead of him.

Closer he rode, and closer, and the light grew brighter. It was gold, and it was the thatch of the bridge across the Gjaller River, across which all who die must travel.

He slowed Sleipnir to a walk as they crossed the bridge, which swung and shook beneath them.

“What is your name?” asked a woman’s voice. “Who are your kin? What are you doing in the land of the dead?”

Hermod said nothing.

He reached the far end of the bridge, where a maiden stood. She was pale and very beautiful, and she looked at him as if she had never seen anything like him before. Her name was Modgud, and she guarded the bridge.

“Yesterday enough dead men to fill five kingdoms crossed this bridge, but you alone cause it to shake more than they did, though there were men and horses beyond all counting. I can see the red blood beneath your skin. You are not the color of the dead—they are gray, and green, and white, and blue. Your skin has life beneath it. Who are you? Why are you traveling to Hel?”