And with these words leaped into Niflheim with a yell of triumph.
"Surely that cry was the cry of Loki," said one of the maidens; but another pointed towards the city of Helheim, and there they saw the stern face of Hela looking over the wall.
"One has not wept," said the grim Queen, "and Helheim holds its own." So saying she motioned the maidens away with her long, cold hand.
Then the Valkyrior turned and fled up the steep way to the foot of Odin's throne, like a pale snow-drift that flies before the storm.
After this a strong child, called Vali, was born in the city of Asgard. He was the youngest of Odin's sons—strong and cold as the icy January blast; but full, also, as it is of the hope of the new year. When only a day old he slew the blind Hödur by a single blow, and then spent the rest of his life in trying to lift the shadow of death from the face of the weeping earth.
The death of Baldur was probably in the first place an expression of the decline of the Summer sun. At midsummer Freyja's husband forsook her, at midsummer also the bright god begins to turn his face Helheim-wards. Midsummer day is observed in the North of Europe under the name of Beltan, and fires are lighted upon the hills, a custom which evidently had its origin in a commemoration of Baldur's death. Some think that Baldur and Hödur typify the two halves of the year. At the turn of the day in Summer Höd kills Baldur, at the turn of the day in Winter Vali kills Hödur. Vali was the son of Odin and Rind, a giantess, whose name means the winterly earth, so that clearly Vali comes at midwinter. Why the mistletoe should be used to kill Baldur it is difficult to say. Might its being so weak and small imply the very small beginning of the day's decline.
But Baldur, from the description given of him in the Edda, must surely be a personification of goodness morally, as well as the sun of the outward year, and his not returning from Helheim, being retained there through the machinations of Loki, seems to be a sort of connecting link between the first sorrow of the gods, the beginning of evil and their final defeat by the evil powers at Ragnarök—the giants have already one foot upon the gods.
The hero of the next story is Tyr, mentioned in the first chapter as the only one of the Æsir who could feed the monster Fenrir.