Waiting the darkness of the final times, That one should grudge its loss for Balder’s sake,-- Balder their joy, so bright, so loved a god. But fate withstands, and laws forbid this way. Yet in my secret mind one way I know, Nor do I judge if it shall win or fail; But much must still be tried, which shall but fail.” And the blind Hoder answered her, and said,-- “What way is this, O mother, that thou show’st? Is it a matter which a god might try?” And straight the mother of the gods replied,-- “There is a way which leads to Hela’s realm, Untrodden, lonely, far from light and heaven. Who goes that way must take no other horse To ride, but Sleipner, Odin’s horse, alone. Nor must he choose that common path of gods Which every day they come and go in heaven, O’er the bridge Bifrost, where is Heimdall’s watch, Past Midgard fortress, down to earth and men. But he must tread a dark untravelled road Which branches from the north of heaven, and ride Nine days, nine nights, toward the northern ice, Through valleys deep-ingulfed with roaring streams. And he will reach on the tenth morn a bridge Which spans with golden arches Giall’s stream, Not Bifrost, but that bridge a damsel keeps, Who tells the passing troops of dead their way To the low shore of ghosts, and Hela’s realm. And she will bid him northward steer his course. Then he will journey through no lighted land, Nor see the sun arise, nor see it set; But he must ever watch the northern Bear, Who from her frozen height with jealous eye Confronts the Dog and Hunter in the south, And is alone not dipt in ocean’s stream; And straight he will come down to ocean’s strand,-- Ocean, whose watery ring infolds the world, And on whose marge the ancient giants dwell. But he will reach its unknown northern shore, Far, far beyond the outmost giant’s home, At the chinked fields of ice, the wastes of snow. And he must fare across the dismal ice Northward, until he meets a stretching wall Barring his way, and in the wall a grate. But then he must dismount, and on the ice Tighten the girths of Sleipner, Odin’s horse, And make him leap the grate, and come within. And he will see stretch round him Hela’s realm, The plains of Niflheim, where dwell the dead, And hear the roaring of the streams of hell. And he will see the feeble, shadowy tribes, And Balder sitting crowned, and Hela’s throne. Then must he not regard the wailful ghosts Who all will flit, like eddying leaves, around; But he must straight accost their solemn queen, And pay her homage, and entreat with prayers, Telling her all that grief they have in heaven For Balder, whom she holds by right below; If haply he may melt her heart with words, And make her yield, and give him Balder back.”