Hermod explained to Mödgud the reason of his coming, and, having ascertained that Balder and Nanna had ridden over the bridge before him, he hastened on, until he came to the gate of hell, which rose forbiddingly before him.
Nothing daunted by this barrier, Hermod dismounted on the smooth ice, tightened the girths of his saddle, remounted, and burying his spurs deep into Sleipnir’s sleek sides, he made him take a prodigious leap, which landed him safely on the other side of Hel-gate.
“Thence on he journey’d o’er the fields of ice
Still north, until he met a stretching wall
Barring his way, and in the wall a gate.
Then he dismounted, and drew tight the girths,
On the smooth ice, of Sleipnir, Odin’s horse,
And made him leap the gate, and came within.”
Balder Dead (Matthew Arnold).
Riding onward, Hermod came at last to Hel’s banquet hall, where he found Balder, pale and dejected, lying upon a couch, his wife Nanna beside him, gazing fixedly at the mead before him, which he had no heart to drink.