Since the world began no one had seen such a funeral.  No bells tolled, no long procession of mourners moved across the hills, but all the worlds lay under a deep shadow, and from every quarter came those who had loved or feared Balder.  There at the very water’s edge stood Odin himself, the ravens flying about his head, and on his majestic face a gloom that no sun would ever lighten again; and there was Frigg, the desolate mother whose son had already gone so far that he would never come back to her; there was Frey standing sad and stern in his chariot; there was Freyja, the goddess of love, from whose eyes fell a shining rain of tears; there, too, was Heimdal on his horse Goldtop; and around all these glorious ones from Asgard crowded the children of Jotunheim, grim mountain giants seamed with scars from Thor’s hammer, and frost giants who saw in the death of Balder the coming of that long winter in which they should reign through all the worlds.

A deep hush fell on all created things, and every eye was fixed on the great ship riding near the shore, and on the funeral pyre rising from the deck crowned with the forms of Balder and Nanna.  Suddenly a gleam of light flashed over the water; the pile had been kindled, and the flames, creeping slowly at first, climbed faster and faster until they met over the dead and rose skyward.

A lurid light filled the heavens and shone on the sea, and in the brightness of it the gods looked pale and sad, and the circle of giants grew darker and more portentous.  Thor struck the fast burning pyre with his consecrating hammer, and Odin cast into it the wonderful ring Draupner.  Higher and higher leaped the flames, more and more desolate grew the scene; at last they began to sink, the funeral pyre was consumed.  Balder had vanished forever, the summer was ended, and winter waited at the doors.

Meanwhile Hermod was riding hard and fast on his gloomy errand.  Nine days and nights he rode through valleys so deep and dark that he could not see his horse.  Stillness and blackness and solitude were his only companions until he came to the golden bridge which crosses the river Gjol.  The good horse Sleipner, who had carried Odin on so many strange journeys, had never travelled such a road before, and his hoofs rang drearily as he stopped short at the bridge, for in front of him stood its porter, the gigantic Modgud.

“Who are you?” she asked, fixing her piercing eyes on Hermod.  “What is your name and parentage?  Yesterday five bands of dead men rode across the bridge, and beneath them all it did not shake as under your single tread.  There is no colour of death in your face.  Why ride you hither, the living among the dead?”

“I come,” said Hermod, “to seek for Balder.  Have you seen him pass this way?”

“He has already crossed the bridge and taken his journey northward to Hel.”