Civil War

Question: Are there any myths about Baldr that aren't about him, you know, dying? Also, do we know if the Norse people thought Baldr was dead, or if his death had yet to happen?

Question: Why does Baldur have War associated?

Okay, this epic journey got deleted once, but never fear, it's back. Gather around, everyone, for Norse Storytime!

There are indeed myths about Baldur that are not about his death! However, they require a little bit more legwork to find. The major source for most of Norse mythology, the Edda preserved by Snorri Sturluson, only describe Baldur's prophetic dream of his coming death, his mother's attempts to prevent it and his eventual downfall at the hands of his blind brother Hod (with a little help from Loki). He then subsequently can't be rescued from Hel, and only returns to life after Ragnarok has wiped the slate clean for the entire universe. That's all the Edda really has to say about Baldur, and it probably is mostly designed to be prophetic stories of things that will happen, rather than that have already happened; certainly Ragnarok was still considered to be in the future, so Baldur's death, which kicks the whole thing off, is likewise probably in the future as well. You could decide that maybe Baldur is already dead and Loki imprisoned at this point, and the actual Ragnarok events past that haven't yet happened, but there's really no evidence one way or the other.

But Baldur is in fact doing other things in Norse and Germanic mythology besides just dying, so we are here to tell you all about them! First of all, there's a snippet of mythology preserved in a ninth-century German manuscript commonly called the Merseburg Charms; it contains several small mentions of various mythological figures and ideas, including Baldur, who appears (under his later Germanic name Phol) in a tale in which he is riding through the woods with Odin when his horse sprains its leg and halts the company. Frigg, Odin and the sun-goddess Sol all sing healing charms over the horse to help put it back together, and then they go on their merry way. There's no real context for this story, since it was being related mostly as an example of the kind of charm the manuscript was recording, and Baldur doesn't do much in it but look anxiously on, but he is in fact there and doing things with other gods.

However, the real showstopper is the story of Baldur, Hod and Nanna from the Gesta Danorum. The work (which means "History of the Danes") is by Saxo Grammaticus, a crusty old Danish historian from the twelfth century, who despite being Christian himself collected a great deal of indigenous European mythology and folklore for purposes of history and storytelling (incidentally, he's also one of our major sources for Slavic myth, too!). Saxo's stories are even more heavily euhemerized than Snorri's, and he's prone to frequently reminding the reader that gods aren't real and the ancient pagans were stupid, and he theorizes that figures like Odin were probably magicians who simply fooled the populace into thinking they were gods and later passed into legend; but he also preserves some great stories about the continental Germanic interpretations of the Norse gods that aren't included in Snorri's purely Icelandic Edda. Baldur gets an entire chapter in the Gesta Danorum, one full of interesting mythological ideas and alternative interpretations of themes we also see in the Edda and oh man, is he a busy dude.

The hero of the story actually isn't Baldur (here Latinized as Balderus) at all; it's his half-brother Hod (Hotherus), who is not blind at all in this tale but rather a mortal warrior and prince who has been fostering with King Gevar of Norway. He is described as athletic, strong, skilled in all sorts of sports and kinds of combat, and also an accomplished musician and orator. While living with King Gewar, he falls in love with Nanna, Gewar's daughter and a fan of all his awesome skills (in fact, they make a point of saying she falls in love with him because he's awesome even though he isn't very handsome, probably because he can't compete with Baldur in handsomeness later), and the two of them become lovers and make plans to marry.

Unfortunately, at this point Baldur arrives to utterly screw everything up for everyone. Baldur - handsome and awesome at war, as he is generally depicted in Norse mythology - happens to be passing by one day and catches a glimpse of Nanna bathing, and also falls hopelessy in love with her. He decides that nothing and no one, including Hod, is going to stand in his way when it comes to getting her hand in marriage, and sets off to go present himself to her father and ask for her. Hod, who is out hunting at the time, runs into some mysterious "wood-maidens" (probably valkyries, since they identify themselves as magical ladies in charge of warfare), who warn him about what Baldur is up to and caution him not to attack him, since Hod is a mere mortal man while Baldur (as the son of Odin) is a demigod and therefore out of his league. (Of course, Saxo doesn't believe anybody here is a god and will continue telling you so, but he explains it by saying that since Odin and Thor are great magicians, they have taught their art to Baldur and Hod is still outclassed.)

Hod doesn't believe his brother would do that, however, and suspects that the valkyries are a hallucination, so he ignores them and goes about his day; but he's in for a rude shock when he goes home to Norway, formally requests permission from Gewar to marry Nanna, and is told that Baldur already beat him to the punch. King Gewar, who thinks of Hod as a son, explains that he's very sorry, but Baldur's a demigod and he can't defeat him or afford to piss him off, so there was really nothing he could do except agree to the match. However, he does tell Hod that while Baldur is completely invulnerable to harm (Saxo doesn't say why, but it's most likely a reference to the familiar myth of Frigg weaving spells to prevent anything from hurting him), he's heard that there's a magic sword called Mistletoe (aha!) that is the only thing in the world that can hurt him, so Hod could conceivably defeat him if he found that. The sword is in the keeping of a "wood spirit" (described by different translators as a satyr, troll or other beastie) named Miming (probably referring to Mimir the giant in Norse myth), who also possesses a ring that always multiplies its owners wealth and sounds suspiciously similar to Odin's Draupnir.

So Hod sets off on a giant cross-country quest via reindeer-sled because of course Miming lives in the frozen northern reaches, and after camping out outside the cave where the creature lives for a few days, finally manages to jump him when he comes out, knock him down and tie him up, and proceed to threaten him until he gives up the treasures. He then heads home to confront his brother, although he is somewhat hampered by several local kings continually attacking his fleet when they realize he has awesome relics they would like to steal, and having to make a detour to go help an ally of his who is under attack by another kingdom.

But Baldur has not been just sitting around waiting for Hod to get back all this time; having gotten tired of Gewar's bullshitting and stalling for time, he girds up for war and rolls his whole army up to Gewar's castle to demand that he give Nanna up already. Gewar, still trying to play for time in the hopes that Hod will show up, tells him that he'll have to get consent from Nanna herself first, so Baldur spends a few days wooing her and trying to convince her that he's awesome and she'll love being married to him and that Hod dude wasn't all that great anyway. Nanna, however, is having none of his shenanigans, and refuses to marry him, giving the excuse that he's a demigod and she's a mortal, so she doesn't think this marriage would work out anyway. She, too, plays for more time by spending a few days coming up with creative ways to turn Baldur down while he gets more and more frustrated.

At about the point where Norway is about to have to either hold a wedding or get conquered, Hod finally makes it back into town, and attacks Baldur's forces with his own, touching off a massive naval battle in the royal harbor. Baldur's not about to take this lying down, and he calls in the cavalry - Odin and Thor, who arrive to start laying waste to Hod's forces and generally enjoying their Courage Virtue all over the landscape. Hod's army is in danger of being routed, since Thor alone is taking out entire regiments with every swing, but Hod saves the day by diving into the fray, managing to get up close to Thor, and cutting off part of Mjolnir's handle, which upsets the other god so much that he withdraws and the battle ends in stalemate. (This is in contrast to the Icelandic story in which Mjolnir's handle is shorter than it should be because of problems in the crafting process, but it's clearly the same idea being presented, even though Saxo refers to the weapon as a club instead of a hammer.) Baldur has to retreat with Odin and Thor, so Hod takes advantage of this opportunity to finally go home and marry Nanna, who is very happy to see him, and the two of them move to Sweden where the local rulers have invited him to become king.

Baldur is not done throwing a raging tantrum over this, however, so he marshals together his army and marches on Sweden, where he decimates Hod's armies and forces his brother and Nanna to flee back to her father's castle in Norway. Baldur chases them with his army, creating magical springs for his men to drink from all along the way, but he is tormented by terrible nightmares of Nanna in his brother's arms and visions of how much she doesn't love him, which cause him to become crazier and crazier as well as taking a physical toll on him.

Hod, correctly assuming that he's going to get his ass kicked and his wife kidnapped if he doesn't get an army together quickly, runs to Denmark, where the previous king has recently died, and makes himself king there. His stability is short-lived, however, because while he's out visiting his Swedish lands, Baldur also arrives in Denmark, where the people realize that he's so awesome that they want to elect him king instead; Hod gets back in time to try to fight him for the crown, but is losing badly again in short order and once again has to run for it to avoid being captured or killed by Baldur's forces.

At this point, things are going so badly for Hod that he spends a while just wandering sadly in the wilderness, wondering how his life got to this point and what he could possibly do to try to fix things. While doing so, he runs into some mysterious magical women who live in a cave deep in the forest (Saxo says it's valkyries again, but their behavior makes them more similar to the Norns), who tell him to get his shit together because he is currently doing a piss-poor job of achieving his destiny. They remind him that he has magical Baldur-killing relics, and furthermore tell him that Baldur eats a magical food every day to keep him divinely strong (possibly a related myth to the idea of the Aesir eating the apples of Idun), and that if he can get hold of some of it, he can be on an even playing field with his enemy.

So Baldur and Hod go to war again, causing massive slaughter and destruction all over the Danish landscape, while Hod quietly spies on Baldur's camp and tries to figure out how to get some of this magical foodstuff that can help him win. He eventually successfully disguises himself as an unremarkable soldier and manages to sneak his way in, where he woos the three maidens (again, possibly the Norns?) in charge of Baldur's food with his skills as a musician and convinces them that they should help him. They still refuse to give him any of Baldur's food, since that would break their vows to help Baldur, but they do give him a belt and girdle that ensure that the wearer will be victorious (they aren't aware that they're actually talking to Hod, and think they're just helping some good-hearted soldier survive the daily bloodbath out there).

Finally sure of success and covered in magical relics and prizes, Hod manages to waylay Baldur on his way back to camp and stabs him fatally with Mistletoe before returning to his army. Baldur, who knows he is dying but still refuses to back down or admit defeat, continues to command his troops and forces them to carry him out into battle when he can't walk anymore, until finally he has a vision of Hel (Saxo calls her Proserpina, using the Roman goddess of death as a stand-in for the Norse one) telling him that he will be with her on the morrow (very similar to his prophetic vision of his death in the Edda). He dies the next morning after three days of misery from his wound, still feverishly dreaming of Nanna, and Hod is able to finally win the battle now that Baldur's forces are leaderless and in disarray. Denmark holds a massive nation-wide mourning period for their fallen leader, and after that the story continues on with the familiar tale of Odin raping Rind in order to give birth to Vali so that he can kill Hod and avenge Baldur's death.

So, to answer the second question up there, Baldur has War associated because he is the most warringest warrior ever to war. Baldur's answer to everything is to get an army and go administer a military beatdown upon whomever is upsetting him, and with the exception of the single battle in which he is forced to withdraw with Thor and Odin, he also always wins. Even when he was dying of his wounds, he continued commanding his forces to victory from a litter in the middle of the battlefield. He's hardcore.

While there are a lot of details in Saxo's account that are close to those in Snorri's (Thor wielding a mighty weapon with a shortened handle, "mistletoe" being the only thing that can hurt Baldur and so on), there are also various issues that definitely don't match up, leaving the field open for different Storytellers to have a lot of different interpretations of what happened here. Scion: Ragnarok takes the approach that all three of these Norse gods involved - Baldur, Hod and Nanna - were Scions, and that this battle over the woman both brothers loved took place while they were demigods and still active in the World. That interpretation then leaves everyone free to go on to Snorri's prophecies of doom without too much story conflict.

But it doesn't solve everything. The most glaring inconsistency is Nanna herself; in Saxo's account, she is in love with Hod and marries him, but in the Edda, she is described as Baldur's wife and there is no mention anywhere of any conflict over that arrangement. If they were all demigods when this happened, what changed between then and now to make her leave one brother for the other? Was it just that Baldur became irresistibly hot and charismatic and she couldn't help herself, leaving Hod destitute and unable to compete? Did Odin come in and lay down the law on behalf of his favorite son? What about Hod's blindness - when and how did he become blind, and is that involved at all? Was it a punishment for his acts against Baldur, or was it the result of some accident we don't know about, or even self-inflicted in despair after losing his wife? If Baldur did steal Nanna away from Hod at some point, does she still have feelings for her former husband, and how do they interact socially and politically? If Hod resents Baldur for taking his wife, how does he reconcile that with Baldur's incredible beauty and charm, and is he really totally innocent when it comes to killing Baldur with the mistletoe spear? Was Loki involved in Baldur's death at all, or was this finally Hod's revenge - or, if he didn't mean to kill his brother, what kind of effect would this second accidental murder that echoes the first have on him and Nanna? Is one story true and the other completely made up by someone else, and if so, which one is the true one? And if we believe Saxo and Hod truly killed Baldur when they were only demigods, how is he even alive again in the first place?

These myths do not fit neatly together, so the answers to those questions lie primarily with the Storyteller. We have definitely enjoyed exploring the relationship between Baldur, Nanna and Hod in our games and fiction, but even so there are still unanswered questions out there for any game to make a call on.

But Baldur himself is definitely doing more in Norse/Germanic myth than just dying. Even if he does do that spectacularly and with more frequency than pretty much anyone else.

Our PCs Hate These People

Question: How do you handle Hod in your games? Does he come up? Is he the'elephant in the room no one talks about or what? Does he hate Baldur? Also, how does Odin get along with his various children? Does he have a soft spot for them, or is he a king first and a father second?

Aww, Hod! Hod has actually appeared as a major character in our games, thanks to both Geoff Matheson's and Aurora Dahl's bands being heavily involved in Ragnarok and the events leading up to it. If you're interested in reading some of our interactions with Hod "live", so to speak, there are stories involving Geoff's interactions with him here and here, and detailing Aurora's relationship with him here and here.

But if you're not into our stories, that's cool, we'll talk about Hod here, too! The Scion books do a really weird number on Hod, from trying to suggest that he wants to kill Baldur to demanding that Aesir Scions who don't try to kill him roll Loyalty (what? that's the exact opposite of Loyalty, dudes!). We have many opinions, because when do we not?

First of all, prior to Ragnarok, Hod is certainly around, though in what dimension is entirely up to the Storyteller. He may know he's destined to kill his brother, but until that time he hasn't actually done anything and can't be punished for a crime he has yet to commit, so just like Loki is still given free run of Asgard until such time as he starts misbehaving, so is Hod still allowed to live in his homeland. In fact, he's probably more welcomed and better-treated than Loki, considering that he's a native son of Odin and Frigg, although his blindness would make him an object of pity and/or scorn for a culture that values fighting ability above most other things. In our games, once Fimbulwinter started, Hod took to hiding in the Mirkwood in the hopes that he would be trapped there and unable to kill his brother; you might decide he does something similar, or else is still in Asgard hoping to overturn his Fate or fatalistically awaiting the day it comes for him.

As for Hod's relationship with Baldur, it's a complicated one, but hatred is probably not in the cards there. It's almost literally impossible to hate Baldur, who is the epitome of lovableness and whose Ultimate Charisma and Ultimate Appearance make him impossible to ignore or dislike even a little. Even without the strong bonds of brotherhood and family, Hod would have trouble thinking nasty thoughts about Baldur, let alone actually nursing hatred of him. On the other hand, Baldur has very concretely Done Him Wrong in taking Nanna from him to be his wife; according to the story of their awesome rivalry over the goddess, she loved Hod and he successfully fought for her and defeated Baldur, but she's now married to Baldur anyway. The Norse sagas don't explain where that switcheroo happened, so you're free to draw your own conclusions; we think it's most likely that Baldur just up and used his Ultimate Mojo on her, possibly in some kind of permanent Engender Love that left Hod utterly unable to compete with him, but it's also possible that some outside agency (Loki, is that you again?) engineered it or that Nanna has motives of her own that we don't know about. Whatever happened, the fact remains that the love of Hod's life is now his brother's wife, and that's bound to put some sour raisins into the bread pudding of his emotional state. That still doesn't override either Baldur's social mastery or Hod's own Loyalty to him, but it surely makes for a confusing and upsetting relationship between them sometimes.

It's pretty well-established in Norse myth that Hod does not kill Baldur on purpose; he's tricked into doing so by Loki, for mysterious reasons that are never fully explained (theories range from "attempting to prevent Ragnarok" to "giving Odin a big fuck you" or even "matchmakng Baldur to marry his daughter"). We don't see any reason to assume Hod would want to kill him, and although he's almost certainly extremely sad and even angry over the loss of Nanna, it's not enough of a motivation to explain him suddenly deciding to take vengeance on his brother after centuries of playing nice. What Hod is doing and feeling up to Ragnarok depends on the Storyteller, but our Hod was always pretty despondent over the idea that he was going to kill Baldur and there was nothing he could do about it, and would have loved to find a way to avoid it, just like most of the Aesir are not enthused about their eventual fates.

As for Odin... well, as you all know, Odin is more than a little bit of a humongous dick. This extends to his children as well as to everyone else; you only have to look at the stories of him cheerfully punking Thor's face off in disguise or nodding sagely as Tyr gets his hand bitten off to know that. That doesn't mean he doesn't care about them, of course, but he's always been very much about his own schemes first and foremost, and everybody's welfare somewhere a distant second. He would undoubtedly want to help his kids when they need it, provided he can do so without some kind of heinous penalty, but if there's something else he needs to be doing or helping them out would be just too much of a pain in the ass, he's likely to let them figure it out themselves rather than stepping in. He's trying to simultaneously avert Ragnarok, hold onto his own power and still have time for prankship along the way; he ain't got time for your problems right now, Bragi.

Of course, if you asked him, I'm sure he would tell you that averting Ragnarok is in everyone's best interests and he is therefore constantly working to safeguard his people. It just happens to come with the delicious side benefit of himself not getting eaten by a giant wolf. He's an altruist!