Towards the Baldur Myth - Germanic Mythology

the Småland charms could stem. Because of this, it is risky to draw the conclusion from
them that Odin is the one whose horse got a sprain in the Merseburg Charm, because
there the horse‘s owner is called Baldur, a name that was not used as an appellative in
any relic of the German language, and because, as was pointed out above, internal
evidence speaks for this Baldur being the same as the Norse Baldur.
In Tidskrift för Landsmålen, 49 Axel Kock published an article dated Lund, May
1887, which is of particular interest for our subject and therefore from which I quote the
following:
―Grimm and others with him have assumed that Phol and Balderes designate the same
god, namely the god Baldur, that it is his horse whose foot comes out of joint and that Wodan, in
whose company Baldur rides, heals the injury.
―Bugge on the other hand believes that Balderes (i.e. balderes) is the nomen appellativum
―lord‘s‖ which refers to Wodan, and that it consequently is Odin‘s horse that gets hurt and Odin
himself who remedies it. The word balderes would therefore have nothing to do with Phol (as
Bugge himself suggests, Stud. pg. 288, understanding Phol as a variation of Apollo). As support
for his opinion he refers, among other things, to a modern Swedish magic formula against sprains
recorded in Småland:
Oden rider öfver sten och bärg, etc. (see above)
―And he adds: ‗Since here it is Odin‘s own horse that has twisted its foot and is made
whole by him, then it is probable that in the Merseburg Charm, which provides another record of
the same magic formula, it is Wodan‘s horse that twists its foot and is thus made whole.‘ That
balderes should refer to Wodan is evidently the main reason for Bugge to assume that the god
Baldur was unknown among heathens in central Germany. Bugge also refers to another magic
formula in modern Swedish according to which Odin‘s horse became sick (‗got colic‘), but this is
not really like the Merseburg Charm and therefore has no weight as evidence.
―As Bugge cites modern Swedish magic charms, I shall cite another one from Sweden of
older date as an antithesis to it. Dr. Ludvig Larsson first made me aware of this magic formula
and the great similarity that exists between it and the Merseburg Charm. Through a comparison of
the Swedish and the Old High German charms, I believe I have found that the former one
powerfully attests to Phol and Balderes in the Merseburg Charm actually designating the same
person.
―The Swedish charm utilized against sprains is gathered from Sörbygdens dombok (The
Court Record of Sörbygden) 50 for the year 1672 and provided by Carl Ohlson Arcadius in his
academic treatise Om Bohusläns införlivande med Sverige (On Bohuslän‟s incorporating with
Sweden, a Lund dissertation published in Stockholm 1883), pg. 118, notes. It reads:
‗Vår herre Jesus Kristus och S. Peder de gingo eller rede öfver Brattebro. S. Peders häst
fick vre eller skre. Vår herre steg af sin häst med, signa S. Peders häst vre eller skre: blod vid
blod, led vid led. Så fick S. Peders häst bot i 3 name o.s.v.‘
49 Tidskrift för landsmålen is probably the periodical commonly known as Svenska landsmålen, published
in Stockholm from 1879 onwards, whose exact title was Nyare bidrag till kännedom om de svenska
landsmålen och svenskt folkliv. ("New contributions to the knowledge of dialects and folk-life in Sweden.‖)
50 [Rydberg‘s footnote] Sörbygden is a distant well-known mountain town within Bohuslän on the border
of Dalsland. To our day, the inhabitants still are relatively uninfluenced by modern culture.