of the frost into the warm air. When the messengers were returning, with the conviction that their mission had been quite successful, they found on their way home a giantess (ogress, Icel. gýgr), who called herself Thok. They bade her also weep Balder out of the dominion of Hel. But she answered:
Thok will weep
With dry tears[1]
For Balder's death;
Neither in life nor in death
Gave he me gladness.
Let Hel keep what she has.
It is supposed that this giantess (gýgr) was no other than Loke Laufeyarson himself, who had caused the gods so many other troubles. Thus the Elder Edda refers to the death of Balder in Völuspá:
I saw the concealed
Fate of Balder,
The blood-stained god,
The son of Odin.
In the fields
There stood grown up,
Slender and passing fair,
The mistletoe.
From that shrub was made,
As to me it seemed,
A deadly noxious dart;
Hoder shot it forth;
But Frigg bewailed
In Fensal
Valhal's calamity.
Understand ye yet, or what?
To conquer Vafthrudner, and to reveal himself, Odin asks him to solve this last problem:
- ↑ The sparks of fire are dry tears.
