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]

[The myth of Balder was perhaps acted as a magical ceremony.  The two chief incidents of the myth, namely the pulling of the mistletoe and the death and burning of the god, have perhaps their counterparts in popular ritual.]

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