From Hel return to upper air!
Betrayed by Loki, twice betrayed,
The prisoner of Death is made;
Ne’er shall he ’scape the place of doom
Till fatal Ragnarok be come!”
Valhalla (J. C. Jones).
Vali the Avenger
The decrees of fate had not yet been fully consummated, and the final act of the tragedy remains to be briefly stated.
We have already seen how Odin succeeded after many rebuffs in securing the consent of Rinda to their union, and that the son born of this marriage was destined to avenge the death of Balder. The advent of this wondrous infant now took place, and Vali the Avenger, as he was called, entered Asgard on the day of his birth, and on that very same day he slew Hodur with an arrow from a bundle which he seems to have carried for the purpose. Thus the murderer of Balder, unwitting instrument though he was, atoned for the crime with his blood, according to the code of the true Norseman.