Egg tempera 90x73cm
One day, the Ase Baldour
saw himself dying in a dream. As he was worried, he decided to tell
Odhinn
and
the Ases .About it , These two felt anxious about him and the Goddess Frigg suggested asking all the
living creatures to swear they would never do harm to Baldour. Which was done, but for a tender shoot of
mistletoe which, according to Frigg, was too young to take an oath. The Ases were then delighted to know
that Baldour would no longer be in danger, and to celebrate the event, they decided to play a game. They
therefore all stood around Baldour and amused themselves throwing at him anything they could find that
would endanger his life. The fact that Ase was invincible made
Loki
jealous and so he decided to go and see Frigg to know the way of doing harm to Baldour. To do so, he
dressed up as an old lady so that she might not recognize him. Frigg was not suspicious and so let out her
secret. In this way, he knew about the tender shoot of mistletoe and immediately started looking for it to
pick it. Then, he went back to see the Ases who were still enjoying themselves throwing projectiles at
Baldour. Loki then noticed the God
Hodr
who stood away from the others not taking part in the game since he was blind. So, Loki offered to guide
his hand so that he could play with the Ases too. He slipped the shoot of mistletoe into his hand and
helped him throw it at Baldour. When it reached the White Ase, his life was taken away and death took him
up to its realm. Since that day, the Gods and the men have mourned for the loss of the greatest God among
the Gods and the world never knew so prosperous a period anymore.