Balder

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Balder is killed with a mistletoe by Hödur under Loki's guidance. From an Icelandic manuscript from the 18th century

Balder ( Old Norse Baldr , Old English Bældæg , Old High German Balder , Palter , Phol ( Pfol ), Icelandic Baldur , in Germanic Nom. Sg. * Balđraz "Lord, Held, Prince", also "The Shining One") is a god in Germanic mythology . A concrete function in ritual cult practice in the Germanic religions is uncertain and is controversially discussed in Germanic research.

According to the Prose Edda by the Icelandic Snorri Sturluson, Balder is a son of Odin and Frigg , and thus brother of Hödur and Hermodr . With his wife Nanna he has the son Forseti .

myth

Balder is considered the most peaceful and purest of the Asian gods. All of creation admires his luminous beauty, as well as his compassion and wisdom. Balder lives with his wife in Breidablik , a heavenly place in Asgard to which no injustice has access and he owns a ship called the Ringhorn . One day Balder dreams of his own death, whereupon his mother Frigg goes to every animal and plant and asks them to take an oath that they will not harm Balder. Only the young mistletoe seems to be too young for Frigg to take an oath from him. The Aesir played a game in which they shoot the now invulnerable Balder with spears, stones and other weapons without anything happening to Balder. The envious Loki takes advantage of the fact that the mistletoe does not have to take an oath and gives Balder's blind brother Hödur a mistletoe and tells him to shoot with it. The branch meets Balder, and the god collapses dead.

The body is laid out on a ship that only the giantess Hyrrokkin can push into the water. Under the force of the shock, the rollers on which the ship stood catch fire and ignite the corpse. Thor blesses the corpse burn with his hammer Mjölnir . His father Óðinn gives Draupnir the Ring to take with him on Balder's last trip to Helheim . Balder's wife Nanna dies of a broken heart during the funeral ceremony and is cremated with Balder.

Hermodr tries to bring his brother back from the realm of the dead. But the mistress of the dead, Hel , only dismisses Balder when all things cry for him. The sir send messengers all over the world and achieve that all living beings and even stones and metals mourn Balder. Only Loki, in the form of the giantess Þökk , refuses them a favor. As a result, Balder is refused to return to Asgard.

Later, Balder and Hödur are reconciled and return to Ragnarök amicably with the construction of a new world building. But Balder's death was only the beginning of his journey and should not have been his end. In the epic battle on the day of Ragnarok, gods, giants, humans and monsters destroyed each other and doomed the world to certain doom. But it was also prophesied that the figure of light Balder would return from the realm of the dead at the end of Ragnarök and that with his splendor she would usher in the age of a new world.

There should be no betrayal or lies or murder in this new world. It was also prophesied that a ruler would come whose sole power would rule over everything. Whether this meant Christianity is speculation - but this thesis is still discussed today among historians.

More recent text studies of the sources and comparisons with representations on migrant bracteates suggest that in an older version the blind Odin killed his favorite son and consumed it. The representation in the Völuspá and Snorri is a humanized version in which Odin, who previously appeared in the mask of Hödur, was later divorced from him. The sir game of shooting at Balder is supposed to represent the old mythical formula of a ritual intended sacrifice for the prosperity of all living things.

interpretation

With the figure of light Balder, happiness and beauty disappear from the world, bringing the end of the gods (including the fate of the gods, twilight of the gods or gods night ) closer to Ragnarök . Since Balder is the personification of the sun, his death is also related to the solstices . Balder is killed at the time of apparent invulnerability, just as the sun  loses its power on the day of its longest luminosity - June 21, the summer solstice - and the days become shorter again. From the winter solstice the days get longer again. The sun is regaining its strength, which heralds Balder's coming rebirth.

At the beginning of the 20th century, J. Frazer's interpretation came into fashion that Balder was a vegetation god whose death was necessary to maintain fertility. Frazer found many followers, but his theory is no longer supported today. The reason for this is that Frazer cared little about the sources. Nowhere in them is Balder associated with the vegetation. The Baldermythos is impressively portrayed in the Völuspá , the seer's face .

See also

literature

  • Karl Hauck : Early medieval image transmission and the organized cult. In: Karl Hauck (Hrsg.): The historical horizon of the god image amulets from the transition period from late antiquity to the early Middle Ages. Göttingen 1992, pp. 433-577.
  • Anatoly Liberman : Some Controversial Aspects of the Myth of Baldr. In: Alvíssmál. No. 11, 2004. pp. 17-54 PDF
  • Britt – Mari Näsström: Blot. Tro och offer i det förkristna north. Stockholm 2002.
  • Edward Otto Gabriel Turville-Petre : Myth and Religion of the North. The Religion of Ancient Scandinavia. London 1964.
  • Kurt Schier : Balder. In: Heinrich Beck, Herbert Jankuhn, Kurt Ranke, Reinhard Wenskus (eds.): Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde . Volume 2. De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 1976, ISBN 3-11-006740-4 .
  • Kurt Schier: Was there an independent Balder tradition in Denmark? In: Edith Marold , Christiane Zimmermann (Ed.): Northwest Germanic. Supplementary volume (Volume 13) to the Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde. De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 1995, ISBN 978-3-11-014818-3 , pp. 125-153.
  • Rudolf Simek : Lexicon of Germanic Mythology (= Kröner's pocket edition . Volume 368). 3rd, completely revised edition. Kröner, Stuttgart 2006, ISBN 3-520-36803-X .

Web links

Commons : Balder  - collection of images, videos and audio files
Wiktionary: Balder  - Explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. Vladimir Orel: A Handbook of Germanic Etymology. Brill, Leiden / Boston 2003, ISBN 90-04-12875-1 , p. 33
  2. ^ A b Claudia Banck: The Vikings. Theiss Wissenkompakt, ISBN 3-8062-2152-9
  3. Turville – Petre pp. 118 f .; Hauck p. 478.
  4. Hauck p. 479.
  5. ^ J. Frazer: The Golden Bough. London 1936.
  6. Näsström p. 222.