o the
world of gods and the world of men, by both of whom he was so dearly
beloved. Said Hel:

"Come then! if Baldur was so dear beloved,
And this is true, and such a loss is Heaven's--
Hear, how to Heaven may Baldur be restored.
Show me through all the world the signs of grief!
Fails but one thing to grieve, here Baldur stops!
Let all that lives and moves upon the earth
Weep him, and all that is without life weep;
Let Gods, men, brutes, beweep him; plants and stones,
So shall I know the loss was dear indeed,
And bend my heart, and give him back to Heaven."

Matthew Arnold.

Gladly Hermoder made answer:

"All things shall weep for Baldur!"

Swiftly he made his perilous return journey, and at once, when the
gods heard what Hel had said, messengers were despatched all over the
earth to beg all things, living and dead, to weep for Baldur, and so
dear to all nature was the beautiful god, that the messengers
everywhere left behind them a track of the tears that they caused to
be shed.

Meantime, in Asgard, preparations were made for Baldur's pyre. The
longest of the pines in the forest were cut down by the gods, and
piled up in a mighty pyre on the deck of his great ship _Ringhorn_,
the largest in the world.

[Illustration: "BALDUR THE BEAUTIFUL IS DEAD"]

"Seventy ells and four extended
On the grass the vessel's keel;
High above it, gilt and splendid,
Rose the figure-head ferocious
With its crest of steel."

Longfellow.

Down to the seashore they bore the body, and laid it on the pyre with
rich gifts all round it, and the pine trunks of the Northern forests
that formed the pyre, they covered with gorgeous tapestries and
fragrant flowers. And when they had laid him there, with all love and
gentleness, and his fair young wife, Nanna, looked on his beautiful
still face, sorrow smote her heart so that it was broken, and she fell
down dead. Tenderly they laid her beside him, and by him, too, they
laid the bodies of his horse and his hounds, which they slew to bear
their master company in the land whither his soul had fled; and around
the pyre they twined thorns, the emblem of sleep.

Yet even then they looked for his speedy return, radiant and glad to
come home to a sunlit land of happiness. And when the messengers who
were to have brought tidings of his freedom were seen drawing near,
eagerly they crowded to hear the glad words, "_Al