Balchris´tie (Jenny), housekeeper to the laird of Dumbiedikes.—Sir W. Scott, Heart of Midlothian (time, George II.).
Baldassa´re (4 syl.) chief of the monastery of St. Jacopo di Compostella.—Donizetti's opera, La Favorite (1842).
Bal´der, the god of light, peace, and day, was the young and beautiful son of Odin and Frigga. His palace, Briedablik ("wide-shining"), stood in the Milky Way. He was slain by Höder, the blind old god of darkness and night, but was restored to life at the general request of the gods.—Scandinavian Mythology.
Balder the beautiful,
God of the summer sun.
Longfellow,
Tegnier's Death
.
(Sydney Dobell has a poem entitled Balder, published in 1854.)
Bal´derstone (Caleb), the favorite old butler of the master of Ravenswood, at Wolf's Crag Tower. Being told to provide supper for the laird of Bucklaw, he pretended that there were fat capon and good store in plenty, but all he could produce was "the hinder end of a mutton ham that had been three times on the table already, and the heel of a ewe-milk kebbuck [cheese]" (ch. vii.).—Sir W. Scott, Bride of Lammermoor (time, William III.).