“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 grate.
Then he dismounted, and drew tight the girths,
On the smooth ice, of Sleipnir, Odin’s horse,
And made him leap the grate, and came within.”
Balder Dead (Matthew Arnold).
Riding onward, Hermod came at last to Hel’s banqueting-hall, where he found Balder, pale and dejected, lying upon a couch, his wife Nanna beside him, gazing fixedly at a beaker of mead, which apparently he had no heart to quaff.
The Condition of Balder’s Release
In vain Hermod informed his brother that he had come to redeem him; Balder shook his head sadly, saying that he knew he must remain in his cheerless abode until the last day should come, but he implored Hermod to take Nanna back with him, as the home of the shades was no place for such a bright and beautiful creature. But when Nanna heard this request she clung more closely to her husband’s side, vowing that nothing would ever induce her to part from him, and that she would stay with him for ever, even in Nifl-heim.