A Book of Myths, by Jean Lang - Umnet

Matthew Arnold.
Gladly Hermoder made answer:
"All things shall weep for Baldur!"
Swiftly he made his perilous return journey, and at once, when the gods
heard what Hel had said, messengers were despatched all over the earth
to beg all things, living and dead, to weep for Baldur, and so dear to all
nature was the beautiful god, that the messengers everywhere left
behind them a track of the tears that they caused to be shed.
Meantime, in Asgard, preparations were made for Baldur's pyre. The
longest of the pines in the forest were cut down by the gods, and piled
up in a mighty pyre on the deck of his great ship Ringhorn, the largest
in the world.
[Illustration: "BALDUR THE BEAUTIFUL IS DEAD"]
"Seventy ells and four extended On the grass the vessel's keel; High
above it, gilt and splendid, Rose the figure-head ferocious With its crest
of steel."
Longfellow.
Down to the seashore they bore the body, and laid it on the pyre with
rich gifts all round it, and the pine trunks of the Northern forests that
formed the pyre, they covered with gorgeous tapestries and fragrant
flowers. And when they had laid him there, with all love and gentleness,
and his fair young wife, Nanna, looked on his beautiful still face,
sorrow smote her heart so that it was broken, and she fell down dead.
Tenderly they laid her beside him, and by him, too, they laid the bodies
of his horse and his hounds, which they slew to bear their master
company in the land whither his soul had fled; and around the pyre they
twined thorns, the emblem of sleep.
Yet even then they looked for his speedy return, radiant and glad to
come home to a sunlit land of happiness. And when the messengers