ling goddess replied:

"All things on earth have sworn to me never to injure Baldur, and all
the gods use their weapons against him in vain. Baldur is safe for
evermore."

"All things?" queried Loki.

And Freya answered, "All things but the mistletoe. No harm can come to
him from a thing so weak that it only lives by the lives of others."

Then the vicious heart of Loki grew joyous. Quickly he went to where
the mistletoe grew, cut a slender green branch, shaped it into a
point, and sought the blind god Hodur.

Hodur stood aside, while the other gods merrily pursued their sport.

"Why dost thou not take aim at Baldur with a weapon that fails and so
join in the laughter?" asked Loki.

And Hodur sadly made answer:

"Well dost thou know that darkness is my lot, nor have I ought to
cast at my brother."

Then Loki placed in his hand the shaft of mistletoe and guided his
aim, and well and surely Hodur cast the dart. He waited, then, for the
merry laughter that followed ever on the onslaught of those against
him whom none could do harm. But a great and terrible cry smote his
ears. "_Baldur the Beautiful is dead! is dead!_"

On the ground lay Baldur, a white flower cut down by the scythe of the
mower. And all through the realm of the gods, and all through the land
of the Northmen there arose a cry of bitter lamentation.

"That was the greatest woe that ever befell gods and men," says the
story.

The sound of terrible mourning in place of laughter brought Freya to
where

"on the floor lay Baldur dead; and round lay thickly
strewn swords, axes, darts, and spears, which all the
gods in sport had lightly thrown at Baldur, whom no
weapon pierced or clove; but in his breast stood fixed
the fatal bough of mistletoe."

Matthew Arnold.

When she saw what had befallen him, Freya's grief was a grief that
refused to be comforted, but when the gods, overwhelmed with sorrow,
knew not what course to take, she quickly commanded that one should
ride to Niflheim and offer Hel a ransom if she would permit Baldur to
return to Asgard.

Hermoder the Nimble, another of the sons of Odin, undertook the
mission, and, mounted on his father's eight-footed steed, he speedily
reached the ice-cold domain of Hel.

There he found Baldur, sitting on the noblest seat of those who
feasted, ruling among the people of the Underworld. With burning words
Hermoder pled with Hel that she would permit Baldur to return t