BALDR is an important god in Scandinavian mythology. Evidence for the worship of Baldr is limited to a few place-names; the name was not used as a personal name during the Middle Ages. Baldr's story has several parts: his death; an attempt to reverse his death; his funeral; vengeance for his death; and his return after Ragnarǫk (the final battle between the gods and the giants). Of these, only the funeral is recounted in skaldic poetry, although a detail of the vengeance occurs there. In Eddic poetry, Snorri Sturluson's Edda, and the Gesta Danorum of Saxo Grammaticus the full story emerges, often with quite varying forms.

From the Húsdrápa of Úlfr Uggason, a skaldic ekphrasis of carvings inside a building in western Iceland from circa 985, five stanzas survive dealing with Baldr's funeral. A stanza of Kormákr Ǫgmundarson (Icelandic, tenth century) says that Óðinn used...