Towards the Baldur Myth - Germanic Mythology

With verses 113 and 114, one should compare the stories about Hödur by Saxo,
and about Hedin in the poem about Helgi Hjörvardsson, and in the remaining legends
about Hedin according to which he fell under the influence of a witch (or three witches)
who enticed him unto evil ways. In Saxo, it is this influence that prods Hotherus to
attempt to acquire Nanna and to make war on Baldur. In the poem about Helgi
Hjörvardsson, it is a witch who inspires the thought in Hedin to acquire his brother
Helgi‘s beloved. He announces his intentions over the Bragi-cup. Um kveldit óru
heitstrengingar. …ok strengðu menn þá heit at bragarfulli. Heðinn strengði heit til Sváfu
Eylima dóttur, unnustu Helga bróður síns. (―In the evening, solemn vows were made.
…and then made solemn vows at the Bragi-cup. Hedin bound himself with a vow to
possess Svava, the beloved of his brother Helgi.‖) Compare this with Odin‘s advice to
Loddfafnir: ver þú við öl varastr ok við annars konu (―at drinking be most wary, and
with another‘s wife‖), advice that indicates that Loddfafnir was thoughtless at the cups
and that his thoughtlessness concerned another man‘s wife.
When Odin describes the state of mind that Loddfafnir shall succumb to if he
allows himself to be deceived by a witch, one is unconditionally reminded of Saxo‘s
description of Hotherus after he engaged in an unfortunate feud with Baldur, provoked to
it by three bewitching women. Odin says that Loddfafnir shall lose all interest for
important business: þú gáir eigi þings né þjóðans máls (―She will be the cause that you
care not for the Thing or prince‘s words‖); Saxo speaks about regis inertia, 87 Hödur‘s
lack of desire for his royal duties. For Loddfafnir, Odin foresees a dispassion for life that
makes him unwilling to eat or take part in human joy. Saxo says: lucis ac vitæ pigere se
dixit: ―he (Hödur) said he was tired of daylight and of life.‖ Odin says that Loddfafnir
shall go to bed burdened by sorrow. Saxo speaks of Hotherus‘ insolublis animi dolor. 88
Even the song about Helgi Hjörvardsson describes Hedin as deeply unhappy in awareness
of his offense. It seems as if all these descriptions have one and the same basis in some
heathen song wherein Hödur‘s mental state after his break with Baldur was celebrated in
a manner, of which we now have these harmonious echoes left.
Odin‘s appeal to Loddfafnir not to break with a true friend and not to place his
trust in an evil man, because ―from him you will never receive repayment for a kind
heart,‖ has its correspondence in Hödur‘s conflict with Baldur and in the full trust that
Hotherus, according to Saxo, places in Halogi of Halogaland, i.e. the evil natured Loki.
He does him a great service, according to Saxo, and that he is ill-paid for it merely
follows from Loki‘s character. Likewise, Saxo says that Hotherus rejects an older friend‘s
advice, and that Loddfafnir did the same during some crisis in his life is clear from
Odin‘s appeal: ―never scorn the advice of the gray-haired; often what the old say is
good.‖
Odin‘s warnings further imply that an ill-shafted arrow or an ill-shafted spear,
whose user did not make the shaft, played some role in Loddfafnir‘s history and that
herein lies a tragic episode in which an innocent man receives his bane through an evil
woman‘s tongue.
All these circumstances, in conjunction with the evidence that Loddfafnir, the
former resident of Asgard, finds himself in the kingdom of death when he speaks of the
87 ―The sloth of the king,‖ Oliver Elton translation.
88 ―Inconsolable trouble of spirit,‖ Oliver Elton translation; ―Inconsolable grief,‖ Peter Fisher translation.