And in the hall he found those women old,
The prophetesses, who by rite eterne
On Frea’s hearth feed high the sacred fire
Both night and day; and by the inner wall
Upon her golden chair the Mother sate,
With folded hands, revolving things to come:
To her drew Hoder near, and spake, and said:—
“Mother, a child of bale thou bar’st in me.
For, first, thou barest me with blinded eyes,
Sightless and helpless, wandering weak in Heaven;
And, after that, of ignorant witless mind
Thou barest me, and unforeseeing soul:
That I alone must take the branch from Lok,
The Foe, the Accuser, whom, though Gods, we hate,
And cast it at the dear-lov’d Balder’s breast
At whom the Gods in sport their weapons threw—
’Gainst that alone had Balder’s life no charm.
Now therefore what to attempt, or whither fly?
For who will bear my hateful sight in Heaven?—
Can I, O mother, bring them Balder back?
Or—for thou know’st the Fates, and things allow’d—
Can I with Hela’s power a compact strike,
And make exchange, and give my life for his?”
He spoke: the Mother of the Gods replied:—
“Hoder, ill-fated, child of bale, my son,
Sightless in soul and eye, what words are these?
That one, long portion’d with his doom of death,
Should change his lot, and fill another’s life,
And Hela yield to this, and let him go!
On Balder Death hath laid her hand, not thee;
Nor doth she count this life a price for that.
For many Gods in Heaven, not thou alone,
Would freely die to purchase Balder back,
And wend themselves to Hela’s gloomy realm.
For not so gladsome is that life in Heaven
Which Gods and Heroes lead, in feast and fray,
Waiting the darkness of the final times,
That one should grudge its loss for Balder’s sake,
Balder their joy, so bright, so lov’d a God.
But Fate withstands, and laws forbid this way.
Yet in my secret mind one way I know,
Nor do I judge if it shall win or fail:
But much must still be tried, which shall but fail.”
And the blind Hoder answer’d her, and said:—
“What way is this, O Mother, that thou show’st?
Is it a matter which a God might try?”
And straight the Mother of the Gods replied:—
“There is a way which leads to Hela’s realm,
Untrodden, lonely, far from light and Heaven.
Who goes that way must take no other horse
To ride, but Sleipner, Odin’s horse, alone.
Nor must he choose that common path of Gods
Which every day they come and go in Heaven,
O’er the bridge Bifrost, where is Heimdall’s watch,
Past Midgard Fortress, down to Earth and men;
But he must tread a dark untravell’d road
Which branches from the north of Heaven, and ride
Nine days, nine nights, toward the northern ice,
Through valleys deep-engulf’d, with roaring streams.
And he will reach on the tenth morn a bridge
Which spans with golden arches Giall’s stream,
Not Bifrost, but that bridge a Damsel keeps,
Who tells the passing troops of dead their way
To the low shore of ghosts, and Hela’s realm.
And she will bid him northward steer his course:
Then he will journey through no lighted land,
Nor see the sun arise, nor see it set;
But he must ever watch the northern Bear
Who from her frozen height with jealous eye
Confronts the Dog and Hunter in the south,
And is alone not dipt in Ocean’s stream.
And straight he will come down to Ocean’s strand;
Ocean, whose watery ring enfolds the world,
And on whose marge the ancient Fiants dwell.
But he will reach its unknown northern shore,
Far, far beyond the outmost Fiant’s home,
At the chink’d fields of ice, the waste of snow:
And he will fare across the dismal ice
Northward, until he meets a stretching wall
Barring his way, and in the wall a grate.
But then he must dismount, and on the ice
Tighten the girths of Sleipner, Odin’s horse,
And make him leap the grate, and come within.
And he will see stretch round him Hela’s realm,
The plains of Niflheim, where dwell the dead,
And hear the roaring of the streams of Hell.
And he will see the feeble shadowy tribes,
And Balder sitting crown’d, and Hela’s throne.
Then must he not regard the wailful ghosts
Who all will flit, like eddying leaves, around;
But he must straight accost their solemn Queen,
And pay her homage, and entreat with prayers,
Telling her all that grief they have in Heaven
For Balder, whom she holds by right below:
If haply he may melt her heart with words,
And make her yield, and give him Balder back.”
She spoke; but Hoder answer’d her and said:—
“Mother, a dreadful way is this thou show’st.
No journey for a sightless God to go.”
And straight the mother of the Gods replied:—
“Therefore thyself thou shalt not go, my son.
But he whom first thou meetest when thou com’st
To Asgard, and declar’st this hidden way,
Shall go, and I will be his guide unseen.”
She spoke, and on her face let fall her veil,
And bow’d her head, and sate with folded hands,
But at the central hearth those Women old,
Who while the Mother spake had ceased their toil,
Began again to heap the sacred fire:
And Hoder turn’d, and left his mother’s house,
Fensaler, whose lit windows look to sea;
And came again down to the roaring waves,
And back along the beach to Asgard went,
Pondering on that which Frea said should be.
But Night came down, and darken’d Asgard streets.
Then from their loathèd feast the Gods arose,
And lighted torches, and took up the corpse
Of Balder from the floor of Odin’s hall,
And laid it on a bier, and bare him home
Through the fast-darkening streets to his own house
Breidablik, on whose columns Balder grav’d
The enchantments, that recall the dead to life:
For wise he was, and many curious arts,
Postures of runes, and healing herbs he knew;
Unhappy: but that art he did not know
To keep his own life safe, and see the sun:—
There to his hall the Gods brought Balder home,
And each bespake him as he laid him down:—
“Would that ourselves, O Balder, we were borne
Home to our halls, with torchlight, by our kin,
So thou might’st live, and still delight the Gods.”
They spake: and each went home to his own house.
But there was one, the first of all the Gods
For speed, and Hermod was his name in Heaven;
Most fleet he was, but now he went the last,
Heavy in heart
