e. Both were in doubt as to what should be done, and
beat their brains over divers plans; for converse with a friend in the
day of trouble, though it removeth not the peril, yet maketh the heart
less sick. Amid all the desires of their souls the passion of valour
prevailed, and a naval battle was fought with Balder. One would have
thought it a contest of men against gods, for Odin and Thor and the holy
array of the gods fought for Balder. There one could have beheld a war
in which divine and human might were mingled. But Hother was clad in
his steel-defying tunic, and charged the closest bands of the gods,
assailing them as vehemently as a son of earth could assail the powers
above. However, Thor was swinging his club with marvellous might, and
shattered all interposing shields, calling as loudly on his foes
to attack him as upon his friends to back him up. No kind of armour
withstood his onset, no man could receive his stroke and live.
Whatsoever his blow fended off it crushed; neither shield nor helm
endured the weight of its dint; no greatness of body or of strength
could serve. Thus the victory would have passed to the gods, but that
Hother, though his line had already fallen back, darted up, hewed off
the club at the haft, and made it useless. And the gods, when they had
lost this weapon, fled incontinently. But that antiquity vouches for it,
it were quite against common belief to think that men prevailed against
gods. (We call them gods in a supposititious rather than in a real
sense; for to such we give the title of deity by the custom of nations,
not because of their nature.)

As for Balder, he took to flight and was saved. The conquerors either
hacked his ships with their swords or sunk them in the sea; not content
to have defeated gods, they pursued the wrecks of the fleet with such
rage, as if they would destroy them to satiate their deadly passion for
war. Thus doth prosperity commonly whet the edge of licence. The haven,
recalling by its name Balder's flight, bears witness to the war. Gelder,
the King of Saxony, who met his end in the same war, was set by Hother
upon the corpses of his oarsmen, and then laid on a pyre built of
vessels, and magnificently honoured in his funeral by Hother, who not
only put his ashes in a noble barrow, treating them as the remains of
a king, but also graced them with most reverent obsequies. Then, to
prevent any more troublesome business delaying his hopes of marriage,
he went