Balder: Another son of Odin, Balder is the god of
love and light. He is the most beloved of the gods and his eventual death with
be the sign of the coming of Ragnarok. When that time comes, his mother Frigg
will have troubling dreams of his death and set out to make every object in the
world swear a double oath never to hurt Balder. However, she purposely
neglects taking the oath from one small mistletoe plant, thinking it is too
small to ever cause her son harm. Loki tricks her into revealing this secret
and carves the mistletoe into a sharp needle like object which was thrown at
Balder, killing him. While his own blind brother Hodur was the killer, it was
Loki who tricked him into the throwing the one object that could kill Balder.
Despite a failed attempt to free him from the underworld, Balder does return to
life after Ragnarok to help the surviving gods and humans rebuild the
devastated world.
