NORTHERN MYTHOLOGY. | 61 
‘hurl the shrub against Baldur, offering to direct his hand.. Hédur, ignorant 
of the nature of the weapon, consented and threw the mistletoe against 
Baldur, who, to the consternation of all the gods, immediately fell dead. 
The grief of the celestials was so great that it deprived them at first of 
all courage and even speech, for the oracle had predicted that the death of 
their favorite threatened all with destruction. All the gods and even 
some of the giants united in burning his remains with great pomp on a 
funeral pyre. His wife, who died of grief, and his horse were buried with 
him. 
After a fruitless attempt to restore him to life Frigga sent Hermode the 
messenger to entreat //ela, the queen of the lower world, to allow the latter 
to return, assuring her that he was beloved by all things. ‘ Well,” replied 
Hela, “if all things in the world, both living and lifeless, weep for him 
then shall he return to the Asir, but if one thing speak against him or 
refuse to weep, he must be kept in Helherm.” When Hermode had returned 
with this answer from Hela, the gods sent messengers out into all the world 
requesting all created things to weep for Baldur’s death, and all, even the 
inanimate things, wept. Only one old witch who was found in a cave shed 
no tears and refused to do it; this witch was Loke in disguise. Baldur had, 
therefore, to remain among the dead. But Loke did not escape his well 
deserved punishment. When he perceived how exasperated the gods were 
he fled to the top of a mountain. There he built a house with four doors 
so that he could see every approaching danger. Frequently he changed 
himself into a salmon and hid among the stones of a neighboring waterfall. 
But the Asir caught him in a net, and then took the intestines of his son 
Nari, who had been torn to pieces by his brother Valz, whom the gods had 
changed into a wolf, and with them they bound Loke to the points of three 
rocks, and afterwards transformed these cords into thongs of iron. Skadi, the 
goddess of the chase, then suspended a serpent over him in such a manner 
that the venom fell on his face drop by drop. Sigyn his wife stands 
by him and receives the drops as they fall in a cup; but when she carries 
it away to empty it of its contents, the venom falls upon Loke, which makes 
him howl with horror and twist his body about so violently that the whole 
earth shakes, and this produces what men call earthquakes. In this condi- 
tion will he remain until Ragnaroek (the twilight of the gods), which is the 
end of the world, when in the war of extermination Loke will fall simulta- 
neously with his antagonist Heimdall. The lower portion of pl. 11, jig. 6, 
is intended to represent Loke suffering the punishment of his crime. 
Fig. 11 is a front and back view of an idol lately found in Norway; but 
little is known about it. ; 
Among the lower goddesses, though not exactly goddesses themselves, 
we must also enumerate the JVorns already mentioned above (pl. 12, 
jig. 6). They were the dispensers of the unghangeable fate to which 
gods and men had alike to bow, and were as such looked up to with awe 
and reverence. The first, Urdur (the past), was of the race of the giants; 
the second, Verandi (the present), belonged to the Asir; and the third, 
Sculd (the future), to the Vanir. 
281 
