Cox, George - Aryan Mythology Vol 2.pdf

BALDUR AND HODR. 93
out with his toil, he must fall from the Leukadian or glisten- CHAP.
ing cape into the sea, as the sun, greeting the rosy cliffs, ^—
sinks beneath the waters. 1
Section XI.—TEUTONIC SUN-GODS AND HEROES.
In Csedmon and the epic of Beowulf the word baldor, Baldur
. • n i d - x andBrond.
bealdor, is found in the sense of prince or chief, as niagm
bealdor, virginum princeps. Hence the name Baldr or Baldur
might be referred to the Gothic barSs, our bold, and stress
might be laid on the origin of the name of Baldur's wife
Nanna from a verb nenna, to dare. But Grimm remarks
that the Anglo-Saxon genealogies speak of the son of Odin
not as Baldur but as Baldag, Beldeg, a form which would
lead us to look for an Old High German Paltac. Although
this is not found, we have Paltar. Either then Baldag
and Bealdor are only forms of the same word, as Regintac
and Reginari, Sigitac and Sighar, or they are compounds in
which bal must be separated from dag ; and thus the word
might be connected with the Sclavonic Bjelbog, Belbog, the
white shining god, the bringer of the day, the benignant
Phoibos. Such an inference seems to be strengthened by .
the fact that the Anglo-Saxon theogony gives him a son
Brond, who is also the torch or light of day. Baldur, how-
ever, was also known as Phol, a fact which Grimm establishes
with abundant evidence of local names ;
and thus the identity
of Baldr and Bjelbog seems forced upon us. Forseti, or
Eosite, is reckoned among the Asas as a son of Baldur and
Nanna, a name which Grimm compares with the Old High
German forasizo, prseses, princeps. 2 The being by whom
Baldur is slain is Hodr, a blind god of enormous strength,
whose name may be traced in the forms Hadupracht, Hadu-
hans, &c, to the Chatumerus of Tacitus. He is simply the
power of darkness triumphing over the lord of light ; and
1 Another account made the dog of to Kephalos. Prokris is also a bride of
Prokris a work of Hephaistos, like the Minos, whom she delivers from the
golden statues of Alkinoos, and spoke of spells of a magician who acts by the
it as a gift from Zeus to Europe, who counsels of Pasiphae, who is also called
ga^-e it to Minos, and as bestowed by a wife of Minos.
2
Minos on Prokris, who at last gives it Deutsche Myth. 212.