CHAP II
"Close not thy lips yet, I must ask further, .
Till I know all things. And this will I know ; ^f"
WTio will accomplish vengeance on Hodur,
And bring to the scaffold the murderer of Baldur ? "
" Rindur in the west hath won the prize
Who shall slay in one night all Odin's heirs.
His hands he shall wash not : his locks he doth comb not,
Till he brings to the scaffold the murderer of Baldur."
" Close not thy lips yet, I will ask further,
Till I know all things. And this will I know ;
The name of the woman who refuses to weep,
And cast to the heavens the veil from her head."
" Thou art not Wegtam as erst I deemed thee,
But thou art Odin the all-creator."
" And thou art not Vol a, no wise woman thou.
Nay, thou art the mother of giants in Hel. "
" Ride home, O Odin, and make thy boast.
That never again shall a man visit me.
Till Loki hath broken his fetters and chains.
And the twilight of gods brings the end of all things."
Some features in this legend obviously reproduce incidents in The death Greek mythology. The hound of hell who confronts the Father of Song is the dog of Yamen, the Kerberos who bars the way to Orpheus until he is lulled to sleep by his harping ; while the errand of Odin which has for its object the saving of Baldur answers to the mission of Orpheus to recover Eurydike. Odin, again, coming as Wegtam ' the wanderer reminds us at once of Odysseus the far-journeying and long-enduring. The ride of Odin is as ineffectual as the pilgrimage of Orpheus. All created things have been made to take an oath that they will not hurt the beautiful Baldur : but the mistletoe has been forgotten, and of this plant Loki puts a twig into the hand of Baldur's blind brother Hodr, who uses it as an arrow and unwittingly slays Baldur while the gods are practising archery with his body as a mark. Soon, however, Ali (or Wali) is born, a brother to Baldur, who avenges his death, but who can do so only by slaying the unlucky Hodr.
The mode in which this catastrophe is brought about cannot fail The to suggest a comparison with the myth which offers Sarpedon as a oi "eaidur. mark for the arrows of his uncles, and with the stories of golden apples shot from the heads of blooming youths, whether by William Tell, or William of Cloudeslee, or any others. In short, the gods are here in conclave, aiming their weapons at the sun, who is drawing
' " Wag-tame," broken into the road, " gnarus via." — Grimm, Teutonic Mythology, Stallybrass, i. 314.
