, there shall grow a harmful fateful shaft. Hod shall shoot it, but
Frigga in Fen-hall shall weep over the woe of Wal-hall."[257] Yet
looking far into the future the Sibyl sees a brighter vision of a new
heaven and a new earth, where the fields unsown shall yield their
increase and all sorrows shall be healed; then Balder will come back to
dwell in Odin's mansions of bliss, in a hall brighter than the sun,
shingled with gold, where the righteous shall live in joy for ever
more.[258]

[The story of Balder as related by Saxo Grammaticus.]

Writing about the end of the twelfth century, the old Danish historian
Saxo Grammaticus tells the story of Balder in a form which professes to
be historical. According to him, Balder and Hother were rival suitors
for the hand of Nanna, daughter of Gewar, King of Norway. Now Balder was
a demigod and common steel could not wound his sacred body. The two
rivals encountered each other in a terrific battle, and though Odin and
Thor and the rest of the gods fought for Balder, yet was he defeated and
fled away, and Hother married the princess. Nevertheless Balder took
heart of grace and again met Hother in a stricken field. But he fared
even worse than before; for Hother dealt him a deadly wound with a magic
sword, which he had received from Miming, the Satyr of the woods; and
after lingering three days in pain Balder died of his hurt and was
buried with royal honours in a barrow.[259]

[Balder worshipped in Norway.]

Whether he was a real or merely a mythical personage, Balder was
worshipped in Norway. On one of the bays of the beautiful Sogne Fiord,
which penetrates far into the depths of the solemn Norwegian mountains,
with their sombre pine-forests and their lofty cascades dissolving into
spray before they reach the dark water of the fiord far below, Balder
had a great sanctuary. It was called Balder's Grove. A palisade enclosed
the hallowed ground, and within it stood a spacious temple with the
images of many gods, but none of them was worshipped with such devotion
as Balder. So great was the awe with which the heathen regarded the
place that no man might harm another there, nor steal his cattle, nor
defile himself with women. But women cared for the images of the gods in
the temple; they warmed them at the fire, anointed them with oil, and
dried them with cloths.[260]

[The legendary death of Balder resembles the legendary death of the
Persian hero Isfendiyar in the epic of Firdusi.