Frigga was seated upon her seat of honour before the fire against the inner wall, and standing before her, with bent head and woeful sightless gaze, Hoder told her of the dread mishap that had befallen. "Tell me, O mother," he cried in ending, and his voice sounded like the wail of the wind on stormy nights, "tell me, is there aught I can do to bring my brother back? Or can I make agreement with the dread mother of the Underworld, giving my life in exchange for his?" Woe crowded upon woe in the heart of Frigga as she listened to the story. The doom was wrought that she had tried so vainly to avert, and not even her mother's love had availed to safeguard the son so dearly cherished. "On Balder Death hath laid her hand, not thee, my son," she said, "yet though we fail in the end, there is much that may be tried before all hope is lost." Then she told Hoder of a road by which the abode of Hela could be reached, one which had been travelled by none living save Odin himself. "Who goes that way must take no other horse To ride, but Sleipnir, 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. 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 engulfed, with roaring streams. And he will reach on the tenth morn a bridge Which spans with golden arches Giöll's stream. Then he will journey through no lighted land, Nor see the sun arise, nor see it set; 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 Sleipnir, Odin's horse, And make him leap the grate, and come within." There in that cheerless abode dead Balder was enthroned, but, said Frigga, he who braves that dread journey must take no heed of him, nor of the sad ghosts flitting to and fro, like eddying leaves. First he must accost their gloomy queen and entreat her with prayers: "Telling her all that grief they have in heaven For Balder, whom she holds by right below." A bitter groan of anguish escaped from Hoder when Frigga had finished her recital of the trials which must be undergone: "Mother, a dreadful way is this thou showest; No journey for a sightless god to go." And she replied: "... Thyself thou shalt not go, my son; But he whom first thou meetest when thou com'st To Asgard and declar'st this hidden way, Shall go; and I will be his guide unseen." Meantime the Asa folk had felled trees and had carried to the seashore outside the walls of Asgard a great pile of fuel, which they laid upon the deck of Balder's great ship, _Ringhorn_, as it lay stranded high up on the beach.