’Gainst that alone had Balder’s life no charm.”
Balder Dead (Matthew Arnold).
BALDER
Anxiously the gods all crowded around him, but alas! life was quite extinct, and all their efforts to revive the fallen sun-god were vain. Inconsolable at their loss, they turned angrily upon Hodur, whom they would have slain had they not been restrained by the feeling that no willful deed of violence should ever desecrate their peace steads. At the loud sound of lamentation the goddesses came in hot haste, and when Frigga saw that her darling was dead, she passionately implored the gods to go to Nifl-heim and entreat Hel to release her victim, for the earth could not live happy without him.
Hermod’s errand.
As the road was rough and painful in the extreme, none of the gods at first volunteered to go; but when Frigga added that she and Odin would reward the messenger by loving him most of all the Æsir, Hermod signified his readiness to execute the commission. To help him on his way, Odin lent him Sleipnir, and bade him good speed, while he motioned to the other gods to carry the corpse to Breidablik, and directed them to go to the forest and cut down huge pines to make a worthy pyre for his son.
“But when the Gods were to the forest gone,
Hermod led Sleipnir from Valhalla forth
And saddled him; before that, Sleipnir brook’d