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Triumphantly she returns to heaven to announce the good news. Everybody is overjoyed. They celebrate the happy result of her journey by a family dinner, at which Loki succeeds in exhilarating even Odin himself by his merry jokes. He had never appeared in better spirits; had never seemed to sympathize more warmly with the happy court.
When the feast was ended and the last cups were drained in honor of Balder, some one proposed for the general amusement to try how far all these substances, vegetable or mineral, will be faithful to the oath they have sworn, when brought face to face with Balder. Beginning with the most inoffensive of them all, they throw at him a clod of earth; the clod of earth breaks into a cloud of dust before it touches him. Then they pour a pitcher of water over him and the water forms a cascade above him without wetting even his garments. They try to strike him with a hazel wand; the wand, slipping from the hand that holds it, breaks in two. Balder is amused by the game and encourages the bystanders to renew their attacks.
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The skillful Uller shoots at him a pointless arrow, aiming, from excessive caution, only at his shoulder. The arrow passes at a distance of twenty feet from its aim and continues its flight through the air, like a bird in search of its prey beyond the clouds.
Ten other assailants meet the same fate, trying their luck with a fragment of rock and a heavy branch in the shape of a club. But the fragment was of stone and remembered the promise given to Frigg, and the club was cut from a tree and the tree remembered the promise given to Frigg.
Encouraged by so many reassuring trials, Freyr desired to try his magic sword, but for once the faithful sword was deaf to his orders. Thor brandished his hammer, but the hammer suddenly reversed its action and well nigh made him fall back upon his heels. Freyr’s sword and Thor’s hammer were both of iron and the iron remembered the promise given to Frigg.