Balder_the_Glorious

Balder the Glorious Balder, “The Glorious” Section I. Summary In the chapter entitled “Baldr and Loki” in R.I. Page’s book, Norse Myths, he takes a close look at the character Balder and how he relates to two very different stories of how he was killed. First is the Snorri version of the Death of Balder and second being the Saxo version. Page states that Baldr “is the best of all gods, fair in complexion and nature, wise, eloquent and full of grace, yet ineffectual.”(Page 47) He is mentioned many times throughout Norse mythology but there are few myths actually focused around him. A lot is focused around Baldr’s invulnerability. Baldr is the most loved and perfect of the gods and is killed, but later in Norse mythology is reborn when a new better world is created. Page brings up the similarities this has to a popular Christian belief of Jesus Christ’s resurrection from death. He points out that this is no coincidence being that it is not only Christians who have this belief. A god who dies and then is resurrected is also a theme in Egypt (Osiris), and Adonis. Whether it is derived from balder, glorious, archetype, norse, mythology, version, two, saxo, perfect, page, myths, killed, symbol, something, new, myth, loki, god, death, woman, throne, story, snorri’s, snorri, semideus, sang, resurrected, represents, out, one, often, gods, focused, expected, evil, dies, dead, collection, character, belief, being, beauty, around, archetypal, yet, world, wise, whether, webster, ways