In Norse mythology there is a god who is spoken of almost solely to tell of his death. He is Baldr, son of Odin and Frigg, the most beautiful and best loved of the gods, so radiant that light seemed to shine from him. His end, told in great detail by Snorri Sturluson in the Prose Edda, is the event that opens the way to Ragnarök, the end of the world. But the myth does not close with destruction: after the catastrophe, Baldr returns. It is one of the most profound ancient meditations on the relationship between loss and renewal.
Baldr's dreams
The story begins with an omen. Baldr has troubling dreams that foretell danger to his life. The gods gather and decide to protect him. His mother Frigg travels the world and asks all things to swear that they will do Baldr no harm: fire, water, iron, metals, stones, earth, trees, diseases, beasts, birds, poisons, serpents.
Everything swears. So the gods invent a game: Baldr stands in the middle of the assembly and the others throw objects and weapons at him, which do not hurt him. It is a moment of apparent triumph, almost an illusion of invulnerability.
The mistletoe
Loki, annoyed by the game, disguises himself as an old woman and goes to Frigg. Through innocent questions he discovers that there is only one thing the goddess did not ask to swear: a small shoot of mistletoe, growing west of Valhalla, which had seemed to her too young.
Loki gathers the mistletoe and takes it to the assembly. There stands Höðr, Baldr's brother, who is blind and takes no part in the game. Loki puts the sprig in his hand and guides his throw. The mistletoe pierces Baldr, who falls dead. The gods are left speechless, and their first response is weeping.
The symbol of the forgotten thing
The detail of the mistletoe is one of the most significant in the myth. Baldr's protection seemed complete, yet a single overlooked thing was enough, judged too small to be dangerous. In inner terms the message is clear: no defence is complete, and what wounds us is often exactly what we underestimated. But there is another reading too: absolute invulnerability does not belong to the world of the living. Even the most radiant must die.
The funeral and the journey to Hel
Baldr's body is laid on his ship, Hringhorni, which only a giantess is able to push out to sea. Baldr's wife, Nanna, dies of grief and is placed on the pyre beside him. Odin lays his gold ring, Draupnir, on the pyre.
Meanwhile Hermóðr, another son of Odin, rides Sleipnir, the eight-legged horse, for nine nights to the realm of Hel, mistress of the dead, to ask that Baldr be allowed to return. Hel sets a condition: she will let him go if all things in the world, living and dead, weep for him.
The weeping of all things
The gods send messengers everywhere, and everything weeps for Baldr: people, animals, the earth, stones, trees, metals. Snorri remarks that this is why things "weep" when they pass from frost to warmth. But in a cave the messengers find a giantess named Þökk, who refuses to weep. It was thought that she was Loki in disguise. And so Baldr remains in the realm of Hel.
Here too the myth speaks forcefully: a single refusal is enough to prevent the return. The unanimity required is impossible, because in the world there is always some part that does not share in the common grief.
Ragnarök
Baldr's death marks the beginning of the end. Loki is captured and bound, but at the time of Ragnarök he will break free. The Völuspá, "the prophecy of the seeress", describes the events of the catastrophe:
- a long winter, the Fimbulwinter, and an age of strife among men;
- the release of the wolf Fenrir and of Loki;
- the great battle, in which Odin is devoured by Fenrir and Thor dies after slaying the world serpent;
- the fire of the giant Surtr engulfing all things, and the earth sinking into the sea.
The renewed earth
After the destruction, however, the seeress sees the earth rise again from the water, green and fertile. The fields will bear fruit unsown. Some gods survive, and Baldr and Höðr return together from the realm of Hel, reconciled. According to Snorri, a human couple, Líf and Lífþrasir, also survives hidden in a wood and will repopulate the world.
It is a surprising ending. The shining god, lost at the beginning, returns only after the end of the old world. He cannot re-enter the order that saw him die: he must wait for a new world.
The symbolic reading
The myth of Baldr suggests that certain losses cannot be repaired within the old structures. The lost light returns, but only when what was old has been passed through and consumed. On the inner path, this corresponds to the moments when a whole phase of life must close so that something essential can be reborn.
In short
- Baldr, son of Odin and Frigg, is the most radiant of the Norse gods.
- Frigg obtains an oath from all things except the mistletoe, which Loki uses to have him killed by Höðr.
- Hel allows his return if everything weeps, but Þökk's refusal prevents it.
- Baldr's death opens the way to Ragnarök, described in the Völuspá.
- After the end the earth rises green and Baldr returns: the light is reborn only in a new world.
