Balder the Bright God, the Noble Warrior, the Lord in the Underworld, and the One who will Return After the End of Days…
“Farewell, O Balder, bright and lov’d, my Son!
In that great day, the Twilight of the Gods,
When Muspel’s children shall beleaguer Heaven,
Then we shall miss thy counsel and thy arm.”—Odin bids farewell to Balder
Matthew Arnold, Balder Dead
Poetical Works, p. 123)
The crime that finally turned the gods against Loki was his role in the death of Balder, but this event is also one of the great mysteries of northern mythology. Why were Odin and Frigg, with all their wisdom, unable to prevent the tragedy? What did Balder represent for our ancestors, and what is his significance for us today?
Twice, in Vafþrúðnismál and in Heiðreks saga, Odin wins a riddle contest by asking his opponent this:
Hvat mælti Óðinn í eyra Baldri,
áðr hann væri á bál hafiðr?
What did Óðinn say in the ear of
Balder, before he was brought to the pyre?
This statement ends the contest, and the assumed reason is because it is something only Odin would know, thus revealing his identity to his opponent–who promptly forfeits the contest because he doesn’t want to match wits with Odin. But surprisingly, or maybe not surprisingly, many modern Heathens look at this riddle as an window into a sacred mystery. Kveldúlfr Gundarsson suggests that this is the secret that Odin whispered in Balder’s ear: [The rune *eihwaz (ᛇ)] is the rune of the will which survives death and rebirth again and again, life hidden within death as the fire is hidden within the rough, cold bark of the yew. . . By this rune Baldr, hidden for a time in Hel’s protecting kingdom, is able to bring himself and Hodhr forth alive again after Ragnarok (Teutonic Magic, p. 103).
The most famous story about Balder is the one about his death, and there is more than one version of that story.
Snorri Sturlusson told the most well-known story about Balder in the Prose Edda
Snorri depicts Balder as the wisest and most eloquent and most beautiful of the gods, loved and praised by all, but strangely unable to act: “it is in his nature that his judgments cannot be fulfilled” (Gylfaginning 22, ed. Faulkes, p. 23).
In his version of the myth of Balder’s death (Gylfaginning 49), after Balder has foreboding dreams, Frigg gets everything in the worlds to swear an oath to do no harm to him—except for the mistletoe, which she thinks is too small and weak to harm Balder.
There has been some question as to what the mistletoe actually was.
In Vǫluspá 32, the mistletoe is described as a tree—“there stood, fully grown, taller than the fields, slender and most fair, the mistletoe.” This could be the sort of botanical error that might be expected in a poem written on an island with few trees and no native mistletoe. But it’s also been suggested that the myth originally referred to a sword, not a plant; a legendary sword called Mistilteinn appears in Hervarar saga and Hrómundar saga Grípssonar, and Hother uses a sword to kill Balderus in Saxo’s History of the Danes. In any case, the idea of a slender and weak plant magically turning into a deadly weapon appears in other myths, as will be discussed later (Lindow, Murder and Vengeance, pp. 60-61). Once the oaths have been sworn, the gods entertain themselves by throwing weapons at Balder or striking at him, and nothing hurts him.
Meanwhile, Loki, in the shape of an old woman, gets Frigg to reveal that she did not demand an oath from the mistletoe. He promptly cuts a mistletoe wand, putting it in the hand of the blind god Hodr (Hǫðr) and telling him veit Baldri soemð sem aðrir menn, “offer honor to Balder like the others.” As Loki aims, Hodr flings the dart at Balder and pierces him, and he falls dead.
At Balder’s funeral, which even the jotuns attend, his wife Nanna dies of grief and is burned with him on the pyre. Frigg sends Hermod to ride to Hel and beg for Balder’s return. Hel agrees to return Balder, if everything in all the worlds will weep for him. And everything does weep for Balder—except for one jotynja named Thokk (“Thanks”), who is Loki in disguise. Odin begets a son, Váli, for the purpose of taking revenge, and Váli kills Hodr. However, according to Vǫluspá 60, Balder and Hodr shall return to the reborn world after Ragnarok and live in Odin’s estates.
Saxo Grammaticus has a different version of the story in the Gesta Danorum.
As he tells it, Balder (“Balderus”) is an aggressive god who sees the human maiden Nanna bathing and is inflamed with lust for her. She, however, is in love with the human hero Hother (“Hotherus”), who is neither blind nor a god.
Balder vows to kill his rival, but before this can happen, Hother encounters some “forest-maids” who tell him that they decide the outcome of battles by acting invisibly (they are presumably valkyries). They warn him not to attack Balder. Hother then learns from Nanna’s father Gewar that there is only one sword that can kill Balder, owned by the “satyr” Miming. Hother manages to capture Miming and win the sword.
He has to fight Balder’s fleet, with the gods themselves fighting on Balder’s side, but he wins when he manages to cut the handle of Thor’s Hammer. Balder seeks revenge and beats Hother in a second battle, but he is so tormented by nocturnal visions of Nanna that he loses his health and can no longer walk. After losing a third battle against Balder, Hother finds the “forest-maids” again, who tell him that he must eat the magical food from which Balder gets his strength. They also give him a belt that assures victory. In their next encounter, Hother mortally wounds Balder, who dies three days later, after seeing visions of “Proserpina” the queen of the underworld promising him her “embraces.” Balder as traditionally depicted: a radiant, peaceful, innocent victim.
The Beowulf poet also seemed to have been familiar with this story.
Although the characters are human warriors, their personal names and the theme of the story clearly reflect the myth of Balder. King Hrethel of the Geats has sons named Herebeald and Hæthcyn, whose names contain the same roots as Balder and Hodr. Hæthcyn slays his brother Herebeald with an arrow. In this case, the killing seems to be accidental, since the text states that
Hæthcyn miste mercelses on his mǣg ofscēt,
“missed the mark and shot his kinsman.”
Hrethel, like Odin, is devastated because he cannot take vengeance on his own son. In this version, the Hodr-figure Hæthcyn becomes king of the Geats after Hrethel’s death, but he is later killed in battle with the Swedes.
Finally, several heroic legends seem to preserve elements of Balder’s myth.
Several versions of the legend of Sigurd / Siegfried share odd similarities with Balder’s myth; for example, in the Nibelungenlied, Siegfried was invulnerable to weapons (because he’d bathed in dragon’s blood), except for one spot on his back. Siegfried’s wife unwisely told Hagen where the spot was, and Hagen speared Siegfried as he bent to drink from a stream.
In the Latin epic poem Waltharius and the German source for Þiðreks saga, Hagen is said to be one-eyed, and of course his spear is an Odinic trait; as will be discussed, this may go back to a version of the myth in which Odin himself played a more direct role.
Balder has probably also influenced the Finnish hero Lemminkäinen in the Kalevala (Turville-Petre, Myth and Religion, pp. 117-118). Like Balder, Lemminkäinen is slain by a blind man, Märkähattu (“Dripcap”), who throws a missile weapon that pierces him. In some versions of the songs that the Kalevala is assembled from, the missile is a weak plant (either a reed, or the herb cowbane or water hemlock, Cicuta virosa), although in the Kalevala as published the missile weapon is a snake (Canto 14; Lönnrot, p. 166). Like Frigg, Lemminkäinen’s mother also grieves for him, but she is more successful: she reassembles her son’s dismembered body and restores him to life. Both Sigurd and Lemminkäinen are perfect examples of young male warriors, noted for their love of fighting and women, and it is likely that Balder shared this character.
Will the true story about Balder’s death please stand up?
Sorry to say, but there is no definitive way to know which version of the Balder story is the “true” version of the story. Mythology does not work that way, and especially not in an oral storytelling culture where improvisation and innovation on the part of the individual storyteller were expected.
This is where synthesis and a critical eye is helpful, because some want to resolve the contradiction by saying one or another story isn’t true, and other stories are just Christian nonsense.
When sorting through these conflicting stories, one thing to keep in mind is that Snorri and Saxo were both been influenced by Christianity in different ways.
Saxo is trying to denigrate the pagan gods while glorifying the Danish royal house (of which Hother was supposedly an ancestor); and while Snorri didn’t borrow the Balder myth from Christianity, as the 19th century scholar Sophus Bugge claimed, he has probably shaped his story of Balder’s death to foreshadow the death of Christ (Mosher, “The Story of Balder’s Death,” 311-314).
Saxo may also have transferred some of the features of Balder in the Eddas to his Hother: like Balder in Snorri’s Edda, Hother is noted for eloquence, and in a battle he uses the strategy of letting his enemies throw spears until they run out, while he and his men are invulnerable (Lindow, Murder and Vengeance, pp. 62-64). Possibly Saxo was trying to make Hother look better than Balder by transferring Balder’s good qualities to him. Our aim should not be to decide which story is “right”—this is generally a pointless question when dealing with myths. Rather, what we need to do is to learn from all of them what we can about the nature of our gods.
Balder and Achilles: Snorri’s Greco-Roman influences
Both Saxo and Snorri were educated men. Both were not only familiar with Biblical lore, but also familiar with Greco-Roman epics. While Snorri may not have read Greek or Latin and so would not have been able to participate directly in the scholarship of the time (unlike Saxo, who was actually a scholar), it is clear from his Introduction to the Prose Edda that some of the stories from the Greco-Roman epic tradition had made their way to the courts where Snorri parlayed his influence.
His familiarity with this storytelling tradition also gives us an interesting possibility as to why Snorri’s version of the story is so different than Saxo’s version of the tale.
In the Greek myth about Achilles, his mother Thetis dips him into the River Styx (or held him over a fire) and makes him invulnerable, and his mortal father Peleus stops Thetis before she can finish the treatment. This leaves one spot on his heel vulnerable where she held him in order to dip him into the fire or river. This one vulnerability is exposed by Paris when he launches a poisoned projectile at the spot, hitting it, and killing Achilles.
Given Snorri’s clear familiarity with elements of the epic tradition, his version of events may be more influenced by Homer than by Scripture.
Balder, Christ and Medieval Anti-Semitism
As mentioned above, Snorri’s telling of Balder’s myth has often been suspected of Christian influence. His image of a beautiful god who suffers death sounds suspiciously like the “White Christ.” Snorri’s image of all creation weeping for a slain god is also found in Old English poetry on the death of Jesus. In the poem The Dream of the Rood 55-56 (Krapp, The Vercelli Book, p. 62), the cross of Christ itself recounts the Crucifixion: Weop eal gesceaft, cwiðdon cyninges fyll, “All Creation wept, mourned the king’s fall.” The poem Christ III, about the Last Judgment, explains in more detail how all created things mourned Christ (1128-1132, 1174-1176, 1180-1186; Krapp and Dobbie, The Exeter Book, pp. 34-36):
Gesegun þa dumban gesceaft,
eorðan ealgrene ond uprodor,
forhte gefelan frean þrowinga,
ond mid cearum cwiðdun, þeah hi
cwice næron,
þa hyra scyppend sceaþan onfengon
syngum hondum. . . .
ða wearð beam monig blodigum
tearumThey saw dumb creation,
all-green Earth and high Heaven,
feel in fright the Lord’s suffering,
and in sorrow they mourned,
although they were not alive,
when foes seized their creator
with sinful hands. . . .
Then many trees grew wet with
bloody tears
Some 19th-century scholars suggested that Christian poets borrowed the motif of all things mourning for Christ from the pagan myth of Balder (Stanley, Imagining the Anglo-Saxon Past, pp. 77-79).
But there is a better explanation: Both the Old English poets and Snorri Sturluson probably borrowed this motif from the sermons of Gregory the Great. Written around the end of the 6th century CE, Gregory’s sermons were quite popular in both England and Iceland after the conversion (Svanhildur Óskarsdóttir, “Prose of Christian Instruction,” p. 341).
According to Gregory’s eighth homily on the Gospels (transl. Hurst, Forty Gospel Homilies, pp. 55-56), when Jesus died, everything in the universe mourned—except for the Jews, who in medieval Christianity were seen as hard-hearted villains who were guilty of his death. Gregory’s description of the Jews refusing to weep for Jesus is so close to Snorri’s account of the jotynja Thokk refusing to weep for Balder that it’s hard to explain as anything other than a direct borrowing by Snorri (Abram, Myths of the Pagan North, pp. 219-221; Cole, “Snorri and the Jews,” pp. 248-253).
One other once-popular interpretation of Balder that needs to be mentioned here was that Balder is the Norse version of the universal god of vegetation, who is periodically sacrificed to make the land fertile, and then returns or is replaced.
This goes back to Victorian-era scholar James Frazer, who in his book The Golden Bough had claimed that a huge number of gods around the world were originally dying and resurrected gods of vegetation. Balder was the spirit of the oak tree, and his life force was in the mistletoe, the only thing that could kill him.
His human priests or kings, like him, were periodically sacrificed to renew the land (Golden Bough, part VII, vol. 2, pp. 76-94). Gustav Neckel went on to claim that Balder was borrowed from the dying fertility gods of the Middle East, such as Tammuz, Adonis, and Attis.
However, there is no compelling evidence that Balder was ever seen as a dying and returning fertility god; he is not especially connected with vegetation or fertility in the surviving myths. Balder also does not return every year; his return will come after the end of the current cosmic cycle (reviewed in Lindow, Murder and Vengeance, pp. 28-31). There are instances of legendary kings being sacrificed whenbvtheir land loses its fertility, notably Domaldi in Ynglinga saga 15, but they are never said to have anything to do with Balder.
But it’s still a curious possible interpretation of the tale that Balder is a sacrifice of some kind, and maybe not in the Christian sense, either. It’s a possibility worth exploring here, especially since so much (if not all) we know about Balder comes from just this one story.
Balder the Holy Sacrifice
While Christian sermons and poems on the Crucifixion probably influenced Snorri’s telling of the myths of Balder, the influence was not one way. Some medieval Christian tellings of the Crucifixion seemingly borrowed details from pre-Christian mythology not found in the Bible or other Christian texts. The Old English poem on the Crucifixion, The Dream of the Rood, presents Christ as þā geong hæleð. . . strang ond stīðmōd…mōdig on manigra gesyhðe, “the young hero. . . strong and resolute. . .bold in the sight of many” (lines 39-41), undergoing an ordeal: þæt wæs egeslic wyrd, “that was a dreadful Wyrd” (line 74). He and the cross are wounded mid strælum, “with arrows” (line 63), not with spear or nails (ed. Krapp, The Vercelli Book, pp. 62-63). The Christian poet probably borrowed details from Balder’s myth to present Jesus, not as a “suffering servant” executed shamefully, but as the sort of heroic figure that the early English already knew.
There are repeated hints that Balder’s death was originally seen as a ritual sacrifice, rather than a tragic accident.
In Vǫluspá 31 Balder is called blóðugr tívur; tívur is a rare word in Old Norse, but it seems related to Old English tiber, “offering; sacrificial victim”—making Balder “the bloody sacrifice.” In Úlfr Uggason’s skaldic poem Húsdrápa 10, which dates from tenth century and shows no Christian influence, Balder is called the heilagt tafn—the “holy sacrifice” (ed. Marold et al., p. 420). The word tafn derives from the Proto-Indo-European root *dap-, “sacrificial meal” (Polomé, “Old Norse Religious Terminology,” pp. 659-660). In Old Norse translations of Latin poetry and Biblical commentary, tafn was used to translate victima “sacrificial animal” and holocaustum “burnt offering.” Marold thinks the phrase refers to animal sacrifices being carried out as part of Balder’s funeral, as were certainly done in Migration and Viking Age funerals (Húsdrápa, pp. 420-422).
However, in one Christian text, the slain John the Baptist is referred to as tafn, showing that a human who was killed could be called a tafn (Mills, “Does Heilagt Tafn in Húsdrápa Mean ‘Holy Sacrifice’?,” pp. 149-155). The word was also used for the flesh of slain warriors devoured by wolves and ravens. John Lindow cites this against the idea that Balder’s death is sacrificial (Murder and Vengeance, p. 74)—but slain foes, of course, can be a sacrifice to Odin. The poet Helgi trausti specifically called his slain foeman Gauts tafn, “Gaut’s [Odin’s] sacrifice” (Landnámabók S377/H332). It seems likely that tafn applied both to Balder, Odin’s son, and to slain warriors, Odin’s adopted sons (Mills, pp. 159-160).
The “Game” of throwing things at Balder… part of a ritual sacrifice?
The “game” that ends Balder’s life is paralleled by the deaths of at least two victims of the Vikings. King Edmund of East Anglia was captured by the Great Heathen Army in 869, and they allegedly killed him by tying him to a tree and throwing spears at him—swilce him to gamenes to, “as if it were a game,” as Ælfric of Eynsham reports it (quoted in McDougall, “Serious Entertainments,” pp. 202-203).
In 1012, while taking bloody revenge for the St. Brice’s Day Massacre of Norsemen in England, a host of Vikings under Sweyn Forkbeard captured Ælfhere, the Archbishop of Canterbury. When he refused to allow himself to be ransomed, they led him to their tribunal (husting) and “then pelted him there with bones and the heads of cattle” before killing him (Anglo-Saxon Chronicle E, transl. Swanton, p. 142). A parallel account by Thietmar of Merseburg calls the archbishop Dunstan and claims that they pelted him with stones and sticks, as well as bones (Chronicon VII.42-43. transl. Warner, pp. 336-337; also McDougall, pp. 207-209)
Such a custom might even go back to Roman times; when the Batavian leader Julius Civilis defeated the Romans, he “presented his little son with some captives to be targets for the child’s arrows and darts” (Tacitus, Histories IV.61, transl. Moore, pp. 116-117). It’s easy to picture such deaths as nothing but a sadistic game, and indeed there are saga accounts of feasts where the guests amuse themselves with hnútukast, flinging bones at each other (e.g. Bárðar saga snæfellsáss 15).
In a famous scene in Hrólfs saga kraka, the wimpy Hǫttr is constantly battered with the bones that King Hrólf ’s warriors keep throwing at him. While this scene is written as if the bone-throwing was just a game, Hǫttr soon undergoes an initiatory experience with help from Bǫðvar-Bjarki, and he becomes Hjalti, one of Hrólf ’s bravest warriors. In other words, the bone-throwing is swiftly followed by the death of Hǫttr’s old identity and the birth of his new self as Hjalti (transl. Byock, pp. 44-52).
Although Mc-Dougall (pp. 221-222) is skeptical, it is possible that the “game” of throwing things at Balder was based on a dimly remembered method of ritual sacrifice. Alternately, it may have been a rite of initiation (De Vries, “Der Mythos von Balders Tod,” pp. 146-150; Polomé, “Germanic Religion,” p.99). Balder’s death may be comparable to Odin’s initiatory self-sacrifice on Yggdrasil, in which Odin dies, sinks down, and returns, mightier than before.
Important to remember here that the story of Balder’s death was originally purely an oral story in an oral storytelling culture. The use of a particular game reminiscent of a sacrifice may be foreshadowing to an audience that a death is going to take place.
Wait, did Odin arrange the death of Balder as a sacrifice?
This may seem monstrous, but these motifs of “sacrifice” raise an interesting interpretation.
There is a long list of heroes whom Odin blesses and favors, but whose death he brings about in the end, both legendary (Sigmundr the Vǫlsung, Hrólfr kraki, Haraldr Hilditǫnn, Heiðrekr) and historical (Eirik Blood-Axe, Hákon the Good). Balder is killed by a harmless plant that suddenly becomes a deadly weapon—and so are at least two of Odin’s heroes. In Gautreks saga 7, King Vikar has been chosen to be sacrificed to Odin, but he is reluctant and decides to hold a mock sacrifice. Odin gives Starkaðr a reed to thrust at King Víkar in this mock sacrifice, but at the moment when he thrusts it, the sacrifice becomes real: the reed turns into a spear and pierces the king, while the stretchy calf-gut noose around his neck turns into a rope and hangs him (transl. Waggoner, Six Sagas, p. 21).
In Styrbjarnar þáttr, King Eirik offers his own life to Odin for victory; the god gives him a reed, which he is to fling over his opponent’s army with the words “Óðinn has you all!” The reed turns into a spear in mid-air, and his foes are instantly struck blind and engulfed by an avalanche (transl. Waggoner, “The Tale of Styrbjorn,” p. 27). Odin also carries a reed in Ǫrvar-Odds saga 19, although he is not seen using it (transl. Waggoner, The Hrafnista Sagas, p. 96) As for the blind god whose throw kills Balder: The Prose Edda lists Hodr as Odin’s son (Skáldskaparmál 13), but at the same time, Odin’s own names include Bileygr (“weak-eyed”), Tvíblindi (“blind in both eyes”), and Helblindi (“Hel-blind”). Many scholars have speculated that Hodr is an aspect of Odin himself (Turville-Petre, Myth and Religion, p. 146; Polomé, “The Indo-European Component,” pp. 15-16).
On the other hand, Hodr’s name appears in very old skaldic kennings, but is never used as a heiti for Odin (Lindow, Murder and Vengeance, p. 36). A possible compromise position might be that Hodr is analogous to the valkyries: a separate persona from Odin, but subject to (or an aspect of ) Odin’s will. Georges Dumézil notes that according to Saxo Grammaticus, the hero Starkaðr ends his long and eventful life elderly, nearly blind, and disabled from a lifetime of fighting and suffering wounds. Since Odin has given him the gift of victory in every battle, he cannot be killed in an ordinary fight—like Balder, he has a sort of invulnerability. Vowing not to die of age or illness, he willingly gives himself up to be executed by a warrior named Hatherus, whose father Starkad killed (History of the Danes VIII.268-274, transl. Fisher, pp. 247-252). If this Hatherus is the same as Hodr, as Dumézil thinks, this supports the idea of Hodr as a god who carries out Odin’s will by taking his heroes in sacrifice (The Stakes of the Warrior, pp. 38-49). On the other hand, Starkaðr himself has been linked to Hodr; his name has been interpreted as coming from starkr Hǫðr, “strong warrior” or possibly “strong Hodr.” Like Hodr, early in his career he kills his beloved king with a weak plant, as part of a mock ritual that turns into a real sacrifice because Odin wills it.
It seems likely that both Starkaðr and Hatherus reflect the myth of Hodr’s sacrifice of Balder, each in different ways, with Odin moving them to do what he needs done (de Vries, “Die Starkadsage,” p. 35). De Vries thought that Balder returned by reincarnating as Váli, but John Lindow is skeptical (Murder and Vengeance, pp. 34-35).
Other than the story about his death, what do we know about Balder?
Hercules Magusanus
There may be confirmation from a Latin inscription that Balder was known as a vigorous warrior god, but it is not easy to interpret. An inscription left by decuriones (cavalry squadron commanders) in the Roman fort of Traiectum (modern Utrecht) records offerings to ercoules macusano baldruo lobbono, “Hercules Magusanus, Baldruus, Lobbonus.” Hercules Magusanus is known from other inscriptions, and seems to be a Germanic god whom the Romans equated with Hercules; he may or may not have been equivalent to Thor (see Chapter 13).
Richard North interprets Baldruus and Lobbonus as titles of Hercules Magusanus. Lobbonus may derive from the same root as “love;” baldruus would come from the root meaning “brave,” but this comes from an earlier root meaning “swollen,” and North reads the inscription as something like “To Hercules the Powerful, Swollen with Love,” i.e. “To Hercules the Virile.” If he is correct, the figure of Balder might derive from Hercules Magusanus, and it would be much more consistent with Saxo’s lustful warrior Balderus (Heathen Gods, pp. 126-128). On the other hand, Lobbonus and Hercules Magusanus are mentioned in several other inscriptions from Traiectum, and in these they seem to be separate figures (Vollgraff, “Inscriptiones Traiectenses,” pp. 250-251; see Chapter 13).
If Baldruus is a separate deity from Hercules Magusanus and Lobbonus, we would have confirmation that Balder was known outside of Scandinavia, but we would not have any new information about him aside from the fact that soldiers worshipped him—although it would be tempting to relate Baldruus to the worship of Forseti by the Frisians in the same general area, several centuries later, given that the Norse sources tell that Forseti is Balder’s son.
The Balder Bracteates and what they reveal
A number of Migration Age bracteates, known as “three god bracteates,” have been interpreted as showing Balder’s death. Like most bracteates, these are based on Roman coin and medallion designs; specifically, the “three god bracteates” are based on medallion designs that depict the winged goddess Victory greeting the Emperor (Åkerström-Hougen, “Adventus Travels North,” pp. 230-244). However, as is usual with bracteates, the Germanic craftsmen have reworked and reinterpreted the original design to fit their native myths. The bracteates from Fakse (also spelled Faxe) and Sorte Muld, both in Denmark, have a tall figure standing in the center within an L-shaped outline, possibly a platform or a partial enclosure.
He holds a ring in his left hand, and a branched twig juts from his midsection. A man with a spear stands behind him, and a winged figure in a skirt stands before him, holding a ring. A bird of prey flies overhead, and two fish are swimming at the bottom of the design. The same scene appears on the bracteate from Zagórzyn (also known as Beresina-Raum), although here the skirted figure is standing on the platform or enclosure and holds the branched twig (Bursche, “Two Scandinavian Bracteates,” pp. 64-65). Yet another bracteate, from Gummerup, shows the twig shooting overhead, while the foremost figure holds up a sword together with a ring.
Karl Hauck spent his career studying bracteate images and created the “classic” interpretations of bracteate iconography, identifying many of them as scenes from Odinic myths. He interprets the “three god bracteates” as scenes of Balder’s death: the man in the middle is Balder, the man holding the spear is Odin, and the winged figure in female dress is Loki (possibly borrowing Freyja’s falcon cloak). Hauck interprets the ring that Balder holds as Odin’s ring Draupnir, which magically produced eight more rings like it every ninth night. In Snorri’s version of the myth, Odin placed Draupnir on Balder’s pyre, but Hauck suggests that in older versions of the myths, Odin gave Balder the ring while he was alive, marking him for death.
The L-shaped structure around the central figure may be an attempt to depict a fence or similar enclosure, and Hauck pointed out that a number of place-names near the sites where these bracteates were found derive from “Óðinn’s enclosure” (“Frühmittelalterliche Bildüberlieferung und die organisierte Kult,” p. 487). As Snorri tells the story, Balder is killed within a griðastaðr, “place of truce,” which is why he cannot be avenged immediately; it is possible that this was an enclosure, like those that were built around pre-Christian sanctuaries. Hauck has suggested that the bird of prey on the bracteates is an omen of Balder’s doom, while the fish may show the might of the underworld where Balder is fated to descend. Balder is shown suspended, as it were, between the Overworld of air and the Underworld of water.
The Evidence of the Merseburg Charm
The Zweite Merseburger Zauberspruch (“Second Merseburg Charm”), one of two surviving pagan charms in Old High German, may be a rare mention of Balder outside of Scandinavia (Braune, Althochdeutsches Lesebuch p. 89):
Phol ende uuodan uuorun zi holza.
du uuart demo balderes uolon sin uuoz birenkit.
thu biguol en sinthgunt, sunna era suister;
thu biguol en friia, uolla era suister;
thu biguol en uuodan, so he uuola conda:
sose benrenki, sose bluotrenki, sose lidirenki:
ben zi bena, bluot si bluoda,
lid zi geliden, sose gelimida sin!Phol and Wodan went to the wood.
Then Balder’s foal sprained its foot.
Then Sinthgunt, Sunna’s sister, worked magic on him;
Then Frija, Folla’s sister, worked magic on him;
Then Wodan worked magic on him, as well he knew how to.
Thus be the bone-sprain, thus be the blood-sprain, thus be the limbsprain:
Bone to bone, blood to blood,
Limb to limb, thus be the binding.
There has been debate as to whether Balder is the name of a deity, or a title meaning “lord.” If it is a title, it could belong to the otherwise unknown god Phol, whose name could indicate that he is a male counterpart of Folla or Fulla (Lindow, Murder and Vengeance pp. 27-28). On the other hand, “Phol” could be a misspelling of the word for “foal,” which appears in the next line as uolon, and Wodan would be the lord or balder; the first two lines would then mean “The foal and Wodan went to the wood, then the lord’s foal sprained its foot” (Northcott, “An Interpretation,” pp. 46-49). Cyril Edwards has suggested that Phol might be a scribal mistake for Þórr, Thor, if the scribe were copying a manuscript with the unfamiliar thorn letter Þ (The Beginnings of German Literature, pp. 106-110). It is also not entirely clear how many goddesses are present, four or two. The verb biguol is singular, meaning “she chanted.” Do we only have Sinthgunt (who is Sunna’s sister) and Frija (who is Folla’s sister) present? Or do we have Sinthgunt and her sister Sunna, Frija and her sister Folla, all chanting? (Schaffner, “Die Götternamen des Zweiter Merseburger Zauberspruches,” pp. 171-172)
The commonest interpretation seems to be that Balder is in this charm, and that Balder’s horse stumbling was a sign of his coming death (although Turville-Petre disagrees; see Myth and Religion, p. 124). Karl Hauck has analyzed the designs on Migration Age bracteates and concluded that many of them (the so-called type C bracteates) depict Odin healing Balder’s horse, but his interpretation has been questioned.
Nonetheless, several sagas depict a horse stumbling as a bad omen: in Ynglinga saga 29, when King Aðils’s horse stumbles, Aðils falls off and strikes his head, which kills him. In Njáls saga 75, Gunnar’s horse stumbles, and as Gunnar is getting up, he decides not to leave Iceland, dooming himself to be killed. In Groenlendinga saga 2, Erik the Red is riding to join his son Leif ’s expedition to Vinland, when his horse stumbles. Erik falls off, hurts his foot, and turns back for his home, declaring that it is a sign that he is not destined to discover any more lands.
Symbols of Balder
Balder’s home is called Breiðablik (Broad-Gleaming), and it is said that no feiknstafir (staves of harm) can come there, which de Vries reads as speaking of Balder’s invulnerability (Altgermanisches Religionsgeschichte, §476, vol. 2, p. 214). A few place names in Norway and Denmark seem to contain Balder’s name, which might hint at his worship; they include Bollesager on Jutland (ON Baldrsakr, “Balder’s Grain Field”), and the Norwegian names Ballsnes (Baldrsnes, “Balder’s Headland”), Balleshol (Baldrsháls, “Balder’s Hill”), and Basberg (Baldrsberg, “Balder’s Mountain”).
However, the meaning of these names is not entirely clear (Brink, “How Uniform was Old Norse Religion?,” pp. 120-122). Even if these names do derive from Balder, they tell us only that Balder’s cult was not widespread, and perhaps that there was a fertility element to it (Turville-Petre, Myth and Religion, pp. 117-118). That said, there are two places named Baldursheimur, “Balder’s Home,” in the north of Iceland, so perhaps he was worshipped there for a time. Saxo mentions Baldersbrønd (“Balder’s Spring”) in Denmark; when Balder returns to shore after defeating Hodr in a sea-battle, he makes this spring gush so that his tired soldiers could drink. As Stephen P. Schwartz points out (Poetry and Law, pp. 20-21), this closely resembles a Frisian legend of Forseti in which he gives the law to his people.
It also resembles another episode told only in Saxo (History of the Danes III:77-78, transl. Fisher, pp. 75-76): when Balder dies, he is buried in a mound, and when curious people try to dig it up, a spring of water bursts forth and nearly drowns the diggers. Thus both Balder and his son Forseti are associated with causing new springs to gush forth. Spring water might be a fitting drink for rites involving Balder and Forseti, although the editor suspects that they wouldn’t object to mead and ale.
For what it’s worth, the legendary Friðþjófs saga describes a temple to Balder that allegedly stood along the Sognefjord in Norway, inside a large fenced-in enclosure known as Baldrshaga, “Balder’s Enclosure.” The temple holds images of many gods and goddesses, but Balder is said to be most highly honored. The enclosure is a griðastaðr (peace-stead): within its precincts, no human or animal may be harmed, and men may not court women (transl. Waggoner, Sagas of Fridthjof the Bold, p. 56). This saga was written late, and it is doubtful whether it preserves any authentic information about the old ways (Lindow, Murder and Vengeance, pp. 132-133).
Snorri mentions a certain flower that is so white that it is called “Balder’s brow” (baldrsbrá). This name still survives for flowers in the genus Matricaria, including M. maritimum (false mayweed) and M. inodora (scentless mayweed). Such flowers are baldursbrá in Iceland and the Faroes, baldersbrå in Denmark, ballebrå or barbrå in Norwegian dialects, and so on (Jenssen-Tusch, Nordiske Plantenavne, pp. 141-142). Other flowers are sometimes called “Balder’s Brow,” including Matricaria chamomilla (German chamomile); Anthemis cotula (stinking chamomile); Anthemis nobilis (Roman chamomile); Leucanthemum vulgare (ox-eye daisy); and Pyrethrum inodorum (feverfew; see Johnston, “Derivation of Some Orkney Plant-Names,” pp. 165-166; Jenssen-Tusch, p. 20). What all of these flowers have in common is composite (daisy-like) flowers with white petals and a golden center. These colors may be fitting for altar cloths, banners, or anything dedicated to the worship of Balder. The mistletoe also bears an obvious association with Balder. It is the plant that kills him, but Ursula Dronke has pointed out that in Vǫluspá 31, mistletoe is described as “full-grown, higher than the plains, slender and most fair”—terms that make no sense for the actual plant, but that read like a picture of Balder himself. As an evergreen, it lives through the harsh winter until spring can return, like Balder (The Poetic Edda, vol. 2, p. 51).
Honoring Balder Today
Balder is the model of the young warrior, struck down before his time. Yet his potential is not lost forever; although he rests in the world of the dead, he is fated to come forth again. He reminds us that not even death can destroy the best work of the gods—nor of ourselves. Thus all Heathens today do well to remember Balder and hail him for the promise of what he shall be.
Although there are no hints in the old lore of Balder directly intervening in the world of humanity, the traces of his worship in the past suggest that he could sometimes do so. Grimm (Teutonic Mythology, vol. 2, p.614) mentions a holiday once observed in the Rhineland called Pfultag, “Phol’s Day,” May 2, which he compares to the Irish holiday Beltaine. If we assume that Phol is the same as Balder, then this day might be fitting to honor him as we celebrate the return of spring.