not
tell her that he was the mighty father of gods and men. He only asked
her for whom the great feast was prepared, and why Hel was spreading
her couches so gorgeously. And to the father of Baldur she revealed
the secret of the future, that Baldur was the expected guest, and that
by his blind brother Hodur his soul was to be hastened to the Shades.

"Who, then, would avenge him?" asked the father, great wrath in his
heart. And the prophetess replied that his death should be avenged by
Vali, his youngest brother, who should not wash his hands nor comb his
hair until he had brought the slayer of Baldur to the funeral pyre.
But yet another question Odin would fain have answered.

"_Who_," he asked, "_would refuse to weep at Baldur's death?_"

Thereat the prophetess, knowing that her questioner could be none
other than Odin, for to no mortal man could be known so much of the
future, refused for evermore to speak, and returned to the silence of
her tomb. And Odin was forced to mount his steed and to return to his
own land of warmth and pleasure.

On his return he found that all was well with Baldur. Thus he tried to
still his anxious heart and to forget the feast in the chill regions
of Niflheim, spread for the son who was to him the dearest, and to
laugh with those who tried in vain to bring scathe to Baldur.

Only one among those who looked at those sports and grew merry, as he
whom they loved stood like a great cliff against which the devouring
waves of the fierce North Sea beat and foam and crash in vain, had
malice in his heart as he beheld the wonder. In the evil heart of Loki
there came a desire to overthrow the god who was beloved by all gods
and by all men. He hated him because he was pure, and the mind of Loki
was as a stream into which all the filth of the world is discharged.
He hated him because Baldur was truth and loyalty, and he, Loki, was
treachery and dishonour. He hated him because to Loki there came never
a thought that was not full of meanness and greed and cruelty and
vice, and Baldur was indeed one _sans peur et sans reproche_.

Thus Loki, taking upon himself the form of a woman, went to Fensalir,
the palace, all silver and gold, where dwelt Freya, the mother of
Baldur.

The goddess sat, in happy majesty, spinning the clouds, and when Loki,
apparently a gentle old woman, passed by where she sat, and then
paused and asked, as if amazed, what were the shouts of merriment that
she heard, the smi