forward and Hermodur sprang lightly into the saddle, and spurred him on, and they leaped out of the gate of Asgard and headed for Ginnungagap.
The gods could not punish Hodur for slaying his brother, as this had been done in the Thing, a sacred space. But they banished him, beyond Asgard, into the dark forests of Midgard, where he lurked, hiding in the daytime, ranging at night, armed with a great sword given to him by the savage wood demons. The thin child wondered if Frigg mourned this other son, or cared to think how he must feel; did she know how he had been tricked into throwing the mistletoe? The story went ineluctably on, casting a bright light on some things, leaving others, like Hodur, in thick shadow.
Baldur’s funeral was one of the brightest, most brilliant parts of the story. His body was carried to the beach, richly dressed, and put on board his huge ship, Hringhorni, with its high curved dragon prow, and its long lean body made of pitch-black planks. There on the beach the ship was set on rollers and piled high with precious things, gold from Valhalla, beakers, pitchers, shields, hauberks, halberds, encrusted with precious stones, wrapped in silks and furs. Food was brought, flesh from the golden boar, wine in sealed vessels. Odin came with the ring, Draupnir, the dripper, a magical arm ring from which, every ninth night, eight new rings drop. Odin bent over the chalk-white face of his dead son, and whispered in his ear. No one knows what he said.
When Baldur’s wife, Nanna, saw his body lying in the ship, she gave a great sigh and fell down. They ran to support her, tried to bring her back, and found that she was dead. So she too was dressed in her best clothes and put beside her husband on his pyre, ready for the burning.
The ship was very heavy. Baldur’s horse had been loaded onto it, a great horse, with all its gleaming harness. The gods meant to light the piled logs, set fire to the ship, and roll it out to sea. But it was too heavy. No one could move it.
There was a great crowd of grieving creatures waiting to see the flames spurt. Odin and Frigg, the ravens, Hugin and Munin, and all the valkyries who could not rescue this dead god. There were frost-giants and mountain- giants, light-elves, dark-elves, and the Dises, dire wailing spirits who rode the wind. One of the frost-giants said there was a woman in Jotunheim who was able to root up mountains and shift their sites. Odin nodded and a storm-giant took wings for Jotunheim. The strongwoman’s name was Hyrokkin. She came, not on the wings of the storm, but riding a monstrous wolf. Her reins were living vipers. Gods and men, driven by the wolf in the mind, and the snakes at the roots of the tree, had hunted both creatures remorselessly, destroying their lairs and holes, cleaning them out. And as they hunted the grey wolves in the forests, slaughtering cubs, spearing their dams, so Fenris’s kindred in the Ironwood grew wilder and more monstrous. As they crushed the heads of snakes and trampled on their eggs, so the kindred of Jormungander, like the Midgard-snake herself, accumulated nastier poisons and grew in cunning. Hyrokkin’s wolf was foul and grinning, with the muscles of a bison. The adders hissed and squirmed and showed their fangs. The woman dismounted; the wolf whirled and snarled. Odin had to order four Berserkers from Valhalla to restrain it, and even they were afraid of the sharp-toothed snakes, who had to be held down with forked branches. Amid the howling and hissing the big woman trod heavily and easily. She wore a wolfskin, like Tyr the hunter, the dead head lolling over her fat face. She smiled without mirth, and put one hand on the poop of the black ship and shoved, and it began to career towards the black sea, so fast that flames burst from the rollers. She laughed, and her laughter enraged Thor, who had not been able with all his strength to move the ship. He raised his hammer to smash her head, and she put up a heavy fist to defend herself, and the gathered gods begged for peace, for quiet for the burning. Thor raised his hammer, Miolnir, and called down thunder and lightning to set fire to the ship and its burden. Blue flames licked prow and stern, rich garments and waxy gods, the mane of the terrified horse and the brands heaped round the deathbed. The flames turned scarlet and gold, and rose and roared. Slowly the ship, with its terrible cargo, moved out over the water. Its wake was crimson like blood, and the meeting of sky and sea was a black line, black on black, luridly lit by the huge fire. Thor stood there, dumb, with his hammer uplifted, and a dwarf ran suddenly in front of his feet. Thor kicked at him, and drove him into the thick of the flames. His name was Lit. This is all that is known about him, that his name was Lit, and he ran the wrong way, and was kicked into a fire that roasted him alive.
There was a smell spreading, a smell of burning flesh, godflesh, horseflesh, dwarf flesh, of sweet herbs and scented woods, of boiling wine and melting gold, and seawater steam. It was not the end of things. But it was an end, and the beginning of another end.
Hyrokkin rode away, despite Thor’s desire to put an end to her. Elves and dwarves, warriors and valkyries, wept hot tears. Frigg did not weep. Her will was set on undoing this death and retrieving her dead son.
Hel
Nine days and nights Hermodur rode the eight-legged horse through the kingdom of death, along valleys and ashen paths where there was no light, only grey on grey, solids and shadows, and no sound except the steady tread of the horse hooves. He came to the river, Gioll, which surrounds Hel’s home, and is spanned by a golden bridge. This was kept by a giant porter, Modgud. She stopped Hermodur and asked him why he was there. His single horse, she said, made more noise than all the dead who had earlier ridden across. And his colour was wrong. Too much blood.
Hermodur said he was seeking his dead brother, Baldur. Modgud told him that Baldur had ridden over the bridge not long ago. And whether he alarmed her, or whether she pitied him, she let him cross the bridge and ride on in the dark towards Hel.
* * *
The halls were surrounded with an iron fence, hugely high. Hermodur rode along it, and came to no gate, though he did come to a cavern with a gatekeeper, a monstrous dog, or maybe a deformed wolf, whose jaws dripped blood, whose fangs gnashed, who growled perpetually, hackles high. His name was Garm. Hermodur stared at this snarling creature. He was not here to fight. He turned Odin’s horse and spoke to it quietly, backing off. Then he set Sleipnir to jump, and Sleipnir rose up and over the iron fence, and landed surefooted on the other side, in Hel’s inner city. There was a noise of grinding and boiling, from the cauldron Hvergelmir, where the dragon Nidhoggr feasted on bad men. Hermodur rode on. The dead stood silently along his road and stared at him, with the red blood running in his cheeks, with his living breath moving in his chest and throat. They were all grey, the dead. They had two expressions – one of impotent rage, and one of mild vacancy. There was no light in their dull eyes. They stared.
Hermodur came to Hel’s hall. He dismounted, and went in, leading Sleipnir, whom he was not about to lose. It was a rich hall, hung with gold and silver hangings, and in spite of that sparkle it was dull and foggy and grey. The great hall did not exactly hold its shape. Hermodur felt it as a narrow tunnel, closing on him: as a vast cavern, stretching away into the distance.
Hel was there, seated on her throne, with her black dead flesh, and her livid white flesh, sombre and stern. She was crowned with gold and diamonds, which sparked with light, and then disappeared, like quenched flames. Baldur was next to her, seated on a rich throne, with his wife beside him, and a sumptuous dish of glassy fruits, untouched, before him. His bright face was blanched. His golden beaker of mead was untouched.
Hermodur bowed to the queen of Hel, and said that he had come to beg for Baldur’s return to Asgard. Gods and men, and all creatures, were helpless with grief, and needed the young god to bring back their liveliness, their power to hope. Most of all, said Hermodur, the goddess Frigg had asked him to beg Hel for Baldur’s return, for she could not live without him. To this, Hel replied that mothers throughout time had learned to live without their sons.
