Description: Baldr
mortally wounded after being struck by the weapon that Loki
fashioned out of mistletoe. His wife Nanna is trying to
help him. This scene is from the Eddaic poem Hyndluljöð in Karl
Gjellerup's Den Ældre Eddas
Gudesange.
Source: Den Ældre Eddas Gudesange
Folio or Page: 283
Medium: Not known
Date: 1895
Dimensions (mm): 120 x 145
Provenance:
Gift of Estate of Richard Beck to Special Collections at the
University of Victoria. This illustration from Den Ældre Eddas Gudesange was photographed by
P. A. Baer in August 2011.
Call number: PT7234 A2G5
Rights:
This illustration from Den Ældre Eddas
Gudesange is in the public domain.
Bibliography:
Editions
Ældre Eddas
Gudesange.
Translated by
Karl
Gjellerup,
Kjøbenhavn: P.G. Philipsens
Forlag, 1895.
Secondary Sources
Cleasby, Richard
and
Vigfússon
Guðbrandur
. An Icelandic-English Dictionary.
Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1957.
Baldr (non.)
Balder (en.)
The god who was killed by his brother Höðr.
Nanna (non.)
The wife of Baldr and the mother of Forseti. According to Snorri,
Nanna dies of grief and is burned along with Baldr on his funeral
pyre.
Myths
Death of Baldr Myth
A myth concerning an accidental fratricide. It sometimes includes Loki
as an instigator who dupes Baldr's brother, Höðr, into the act and
actually guides his hand. In the Prose Edda,
Snorri says that Höðr was blind.
Plants
mistilteinn (non.)
mistletoe (en.)
Of all the plants, Frigg failed to ask mistletoe not to harm Baldr.
Loki found out and used mistletoe to make the weapon that Höðr threw at
Baldr.
Source Materials:
EddukvæðiPoetic Edda
This collection of eddic poems was compiled by an anonymous scholar in
Iceland in the twelfth century. It was for a time mistakenly attributed
to a scholar named Sæmundr hinn fróði (1056–1133) and thus was known as
Sæmundar Edda.
Hyndluljóð (non.)
Song of Hyndla (en.)
This Eddaic poem is not part of the Codex Regius manuscript and is
found only in the late 14th century Flateyjarbók manuscript.
Ældre Eddas
Gudesange (da.)
An edition of the Poetic Edda with
illustrations by Lorenz Frølich.
Source Persons
Frølich,
Lorenz (da.)
b. 1820
d. 1908
Nationality: Danish
Frolich was a painter, illustrator and etcher.
Gjellerup,
Karl (da.)
b. 2nd June 1857
d. 13th October 1919
Nationality: Danish
Gellurup was a Danish poet and novelist who won the Nobel Prize for
Literature in 1917.
