The myth of Baldr in the North is one of the most beautiful and striking in the whole compass of their mythology: it is to be lamented that no trace of it remains in our own poems. Still Baldr’s lay may not have been entirely without influence upon the progress of Christianity among the Saxons, if, as is probable, it resembled in its main features the legend of the Scandinavians. For them he was the god of light and grace, of splendour, manly excellence and manly beauty. A prophecy that Baldr would perish afflicted the gods; Frigga took an oath from all created nature that no individual thing would harm the pride of the Æsir, the darling of the Asyniar. A sprig of mistletoe, at that time too young to enter into so solemn an obligation, was alone, and fatally, excepted. The invulnerability of the god induced him to offer himself as a mark for the practice of his relatives and friends. Maces, axes and spears fell innocuous from his sacred frame; but Loki placed a sprig of mistletoe in the hand of the blind Haudr[687], and with this, the sole thing that could not be forsworn, he slew his brother. An effort still remained to be made. Oþinn himself descended to the abode of Hel, in hopes of persuading the goddess of the dead to relinquish her prey. He was successful, and returned with the joyful intelligence that Baldr would be restored to the gods, if all created nature would weep for him. All nature did weep for the loss of the god of beauty, save one old crone. When called upon to do her part in his restoration she answered, “What have the gods done for me, that I should weep for Baldr? Let Hel keep her dead!” It is thought that it was Loki who had assumed the old woman’s form. Thus Baldr’s fate was sealed. The faithful Nanna[688] would not survive her beautiful lord, and the gods and goddesses attended round the pile on which their two cherished companions were reduced to dust together. But the slain god could hope for no resurrection: his throne was placed in the shadowy realm of Hel, and weeping virgins spread the eternal pall that was to give dreary honour to the god of light in the cold kingdom of darkness and the invisible. The posthumous son, or more likely re-birth, of the god, avenged his father upon the wretched instrument of Loki’s wiles. Yet those who had fathomed the deeper mysteries of the creed knew well enough that Baldr was to rise again in triumph: after the twilight of the gods and the destruction of the ancient world, he was to return in glory and joy, and reign in a world where there should be neither sin nor sorrow, nor destruction. ----- Footnote 687: In Anglosaxon, Heaðo, which however has almost always the abstract sense of _war_. Footnote 688: