[Tale of Balder in the older Edda.]

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]

[The story of Balder as related by Saxo Grammaticus.]

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]

[Balder worshipped in Norway.]

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]

[The legendary death of Balder resembles the legendary death of the Persian hero Isfendiyar in the epic of Firdusi.]