but this time victoriously, with Thanatos, Death himself. In these labours the Norse hero, though striving manfully, fails; but the Greek is always victorious. Herein lies a difference belonging to the character of the two creeds. Balder the Beautiful--the fair, mild Balder--represents the sun more truly than Thor does: the sun in his gentle aspect, as he would naturally appear to a Norseman. His house is Breidablik, ‘Wide-glance,’ that is to say, the bright upper air, the sun’s home. He is like the son of Lêtô seen in his benignant aspect, the best beloved among gods, the brightener of their warlike life, beloved, too, by all things on earth, living and inanimate, and lamented as only the sun could be--the chief nourisher at life’s feast. For, when Balder died, everything in heaven and earth, ‘both all living things and trees and stones and all metals,’ wept to bring him back again, ‘as thou hast no doubt seen these things weep when they are brought from a cold place into a hot one.’ A modern poet has very happily expressed the character of Balder, the sun-god, the great quickener of life upon earth. Balder is supposed to leave heaven to tread the ways of men, and his coming is the signal for the new birth, as of spring-time, in the sleeping world. ‘There is some divine trouble On earth and in air; Trees tremble, brooks bubble, Ants loosen the sod, Warm footsteps awaken Whatever is fair, Sweet dewdrops are shaken To quicken each clod. The wild rainbows o’er him Are melted and fade, The light runs before him Through meadow and glade. Green branches close round him, Their leaves whisper clear-- He is ours, we have found him, Bright Baldur is here.’[85] [Sidenote: Frigg, Freyja, Frey.] The earth-mother of the Teutons was Frigg, the wife of Odin; but perhaps when Frigg’s natural character was forgotten, Hertha (Earth) became separated into another personage. ‘Odin and Frigg,’ says the Edda, ‘divide the slain;’ and this means that the sky-god received the breath, the earth-goddess the body. But on the whole Frigg plays an insignificant part in our late form of Teuton mythology. Closely related to her, as Persephone is related to Dêmêtêr, with a name formed out of hers, stands Freyja, the goddess of spring and beauty and love; for the Northern goddess of love might better accord with the innocence of spring than could the Phœnician Aphroditê. Freyja has a brother Freyr, who reduplicates her name and character, for he too is a sun-god or a god of spring.