The common interpretation [of de Vries, Hollander, et al] is that a giantess, whom Snorri calls Hyrrokkin, pushes out Baldr's ship-pyre, and meanwhile her steed is killed by Æsir warriors. There is a possible explanation of this in Gylfaginning 51, however what is certain is that this ogress appeared after Baldr's death and caused a disruption. Next is Baldrs draumar, in which Óðinn rides to Hel, then calls a völva to prophecise for him the death of his son Baldr, who is having nightmares of his own death. In answer to Valföðr, she sings that Baldr is to die, that Höðr will slay him, and that Váli will avenge the death on his first day of life. Then she recognises Óðinn for who he is, and he identifies her in return:

While presumably any Jötunja with three children could qualify for this description, without any other clues the most notable three thurse-sibs are Fenris, Jörmungandr, and Helia, with their mother being Angrboða. [I find the suggestion of the "mother of three thurses" being Bestla to be silly even by my standards.] However, whatever her identity, she then disappears with the words:

Although invoking Loki, she is simply saying that she will not prophecise again until Niflhel thaws. Instead, this poem tells us that Angrboða is in a howe in Hel, which is decorated in a manner befitting the expected arrival of Baldr. This poem gives an excellent image of the sequence of events, which is then given more detail in Völuspá, in stanzas 31 through 33:

[*Tree in the sense of the mistletoe dart, the gallows, and the funeral pyre.] Several writers have pointed to the next stanzas in Völuspá [see Formáli], which describe the punishment of Loki as being evidence of his involvement, saying that his punishment came about immediately after, and due to, his involvement in the death of Baldr. However, even before addressing the question of Loki's involvement, this idea is flawed, as different topics in Völuspá are separated with the line, »Vituð ér enn, eða hvað?» This not only denies the notion that Loki's punishment was placed after the death of Baldr intentionally, it actually indicates that the two topics are unrelated, at least to the author(s) of Völuspá. If they were related, a different ending would have been used for stanza 33 to indicate this, rather than the standard quip for showing a change in subject. The final heathen source for this myth is also amoung the hardest Eddic lays to determine a date or the background of the author, Lokasenna. While Baldr is only mentioned in a single stanza, much more importance upon this lay has been placed by various scholars, to the point where it has become central to the debate of Loki's rôle in the killing. The single stanza reads:

Mogk suggested that this stanza simply alluded to Loki playing the part of Þökk refusing to weep for Baldr's return from Hel, however this passage does not even necessitate that. Loki says that his rede kept Baldr from riding home, but only Snorri gives the story about Þökk, and as such the only one who presumes this was Loki. However, Snorri even acknowledges this is but a guess, which places Þökk in a similar rôle as Hyrrokkin, appearing after Baldr's death and causing a disruption. All Loki is implicated of doing, is bearing rede for discord such as this, not undertaking it upon himself. An alternative interpretation of Lokasenna is from van Hamel [Neophilologus XIV], explaining that the Æsir met in Ægir's hall to discuss Loki's punishment, combining the prose of Lokasenna with Gylfaginning 53. Then, Loki crashes the banquet and kills a servant, to be driven off, and finally returns to insult the Æsir until he is punished. De Vries replied to this theory at such length and detail that it would be pointless to elaborate upon it:

How is it possible that the gods, filled with wrath against the murderer, whose punishment they are planning, calmly suffer him to enter and that no one dares to take hold of the criminal? We know the poor pretext of the poem: Loki's appeal to the blood-brothership between him and Othin [st. 9]. But then Othin could never have undertaken any act of violence against him!

To this I would add that in stanza 9, Loki never states that he and Óðinn had taken a full oath of brotherhood, only that one would never drink without offering some to the other. While this oath could be taken by blood-brothers, the poem makes no indication that Loki being called "Helblind's brother" (Gylfaginning 33, Skáldskaparmál 15) has any meaning other than the literal one. But de Vries continues, in the opinion that stanza 28 "clearly contradicts" van Hamel's idea:

We might expect that in a poem treating the vengeance of Loki, the acme of the story would be the moment when Loki himself boasts of his crime. Then the gods at last should have shaken off their strange torpor; they ought to seize their weapons, to shout at the impudent fellow and if they were not able to kill him, at any rate to take hold of him and to stop his insulting flow of words. Nothing of this kind happens. The tale runs quietly on.

Of course, de Vries can only be ironic with the word "quietly" but the logic is flawless: Stanza 28 of Lokasenna does not prove Loki's rôle in the murder of Baldr, but the inaction of the other Æsir proves he held no part in the murder itself. Finally de Vries comes to the conclusion that Mogk's theory, of Loki having only the part of Þökk, and that the sequence of events were:

1. [T]he death of Baldr by Höðr, who acts on his own behalf. 2. Loki opposes himself to the returning of Baldr by refusing to weep. 3. The gods take revenge by killing the murderer and fettering Loki.

Additionally, there is no internal contradiction within the alternative: 1. Höðr kills Baldr of his own volition. 2. Loki gives rede to Þökk, who then refuses to weep for Baldr's return. 3. The other Æsir take revenge by killing Höðr, and while blaming Loki can place no legal responsibility on him. 4. Loki engages in a senna which makes such insults of níð against the Æsir that they are justified in punishing him with binding and torture. The only difference being that I allow for the alternative that Loki is not Þökk. This is because in Húsdrápa, Baldrs draumar, and Snorri's version, there is an ogress central to Baldr's stay in Hel, and I find this theme too ever-present to account separately. Snorri calls her Þökk, but identifies the similar figure in Húsdrápa as Hyrrokkin, a name with distinct similarities. Then in Baldrs draumar, Óðinn identifies a third similar character, most likely as Loki's lover, Angrboða. Counting Hyrrokkin and Þökk as heitir of Angrboða, Loki's rede-giving mentioned in Lokasenna 28 would be to her, which both removes him further from an actual rôle in this myth, and have the Æsir's desire to punish him even further removed from any context of justice. Both these alternatives explain the lack of activity Loki has in any source for the heathen version of the myth, as in this earliest form his rôle involves nothing more than giving rede against the return of Baldr, but not for the death itself. Following these poetic heathen sources are three prose sources. The latter two are by specific Christian writers known to us, but the first is of unknown authorship during the early saga-writing period of twelfth century Iceland. This source, Hromundar Saga, has a variant version of the Baldr myth as a sub-plot in the main story of Hromundar's heroic life. Since this is a fairly obscure text, I feel it is necessary to include the Baldr portions of the saga, summarising the rest of the story for space considerations:

1. Gripr was a rich farmer, and married to Gunnloð, daughter of Hrok the Black [from the saga of King Halv]. They had nine sons, Hrolfr, Haki, Gaut, Þróst, Angantýr, Logi, Hromundar, Helgi and Hrok. They were all mighty men, but Hromundar was first amoung them, as fear was unknown to him. He had blue eyes, blond hair, and strong shoulders, and had the strength and seeming of his grandfather Hrok. Bildr and Vóli were two men with the king [Olaf of Garðr]. They were evil and without honour, but the king trusted them.

Following this introduction, a warrior of the king's, named Kari, picked a fight with some raiders, and was subsequently killed by their leader, Hrongviðr. Hromundar dressed up as Óðinn, joined the battle, now ending, and killed Hrongviðr to avenge Kari, which turned the course of the fight and the raiders surrendered. From here, Hromundar went a-viking himself, and eventually reached a howe, where he defeated the ghost of a great warrior named Þrain and took his sword, Mistilteinn [mistletoe]. This is the first point at which this name is given to a sword, and it appears again in Herverarsaga. The sword of Mimingus, with which Hother kills Balder in Gesta Danorum, is not named. When Hromundar returned to King Olaf's court, he gained the favour of Svanhvit, Olaf's sister. This angered Bildr and Vóli, who slandered him and his brothers at court until they were forced to leave. Soon after, the king was challenged to battle:

6. He sent word to Hromundar and his brothers to join, but Hromundar did not care to. He said Vóli and Bildr were enough help for the king. The king then left with his army. Svanhvit went sobbing to Hromundar, who greeted her with joy. She said to him, "Respect my wishes more than my brother's, and go to help him. I will give you this shield and ribbons to protect you. As long as you carry them, you'll never be injured." Hromundar thanked her, and accepted her gits, to her joy. He and his brothers readied for the journey and battle. King Olaf arrived at Lake Vanern and found the Swedish army waiting for him. Next morning at dawn, they readied themselves to fight on the ice. The Swedes attacked ferociously, and Bildr was killed quickly. Vóli was nowhere to be seen.

However, when Hromundar and his brothers reached the battle, he changed his mind again and chose to not fight with his brothers. The brother of Hrongviðr, Helgi, was in the battle and killed all eight of the brothers. Then Hromundar joined the battle. When Helgi attacked, he swung high and killed his own mistress, who was there as a swan-maiden, then sliced Hromundar's belly:

7. Helgi was bent over after the blow, and Hromundar moved quickly, splitting open Helgi's helmet and head, stopping at the shoulders. This put a nick in the blade of Mistilteinn. Hromundar then took his knife, cut holes in the edges of his wound, pushed his stomach in, and laced up his belly with a string. He rejoined the battle and slaughtered the enemy army long into the night. Finally the Halding's army fled. After the battle, Hromundar saw a man standing on the ice, and knew it was this man's sorcery which had frozen the lake. He recognise Vóli, and ran up to give him his reward. But Vóli blew the sowrd out of his hand and into a hole in the ice, where it sank. Vóli laughed at Hromundar, "Your life is finished. Mistilteinn has escaped your grip and is lost." Hromundar replied, "You will die before I do," ran up to him, lifted him up and threw him down, breaking his neck. The sorceror's life was ended. Hromundar sat down on the ice, and said to himself, "I did not heed my maiden's words. And in return I have gotten fourteen wounds, the deaths of my eight brothers, and lost my great sword, Mistilteinn, to the lake. I will never regain this."

Actually, Hromundar regains the story a few lines laters when a friendly wizard, who also heals him, catches a pike with Mistilteinn in its stomach. Then a new character is introduced, Blindr the Bad, who prophecises and has dreams, including one of his own death. Blindr is loyal to King Halding, and in helping him, nearly causes the death of Hromundar on more than one occasion. This is the first reference to blindness in any version of the Baldr myth. Noting the combination of attempts from a blind man to kill the hero of the saga, with prophetic dreams about one's own death, appears to be a form of transition between the more traditional forms, and the later Christian versions, of this myth. Also notable is that a simplistic form of the sequence of events is still mostly accurate: Baldr [Bildr] is killed in a battle where Höðr [Hromundar] is victorious, and Váli [Vóli] in return goes to kill Höðr. However, in Hromundar saga, Hromundar is not responsible for Bildr's death, and Vóli is not successful in killing Hromundar. Chronologically, the next version of this story is in Gesta Danorum, by Saxo Grammaticus. For his sources, he mentions the heathen poems, but largely relies on a "saga of Hother" for which the only known possibility is Hromundar saga, although it could theoretically be yet another version of the myth, which has since been lost to us. The Grammaticus version is fairly involved, and diverges from any other form of the tale on many points. However, some have considered it to be the single alternative to the Snorri version, in those cases where Snorri is seen as agreeing with the heathen sources. There is no doubt that Saxo's retelling is far more Christianised than even Snorri's, even to the point of being written in Latin for consumption by Church scholars. Several scholars have examined this version of the myth in some detail, always with the result of discounting any discrepancies as the invention of the author. Rather than repeating the mass of evidence for this, I would simply direct any curiosity to the works of de Vries, Rooth and Mogk. This leads to the mass of writting regarding the reliability, or lack of it, to give to the words of Snorri, a thirteenth-century Christian who, amoung other possible writings, edited heathen myths for consumption by a Christian audience. While Snorri is an invaluable source, and in many cases has given us texts which would otherwise be lost to us, over the course of the past century of scholarship it has become apparent that he felt no compunction in creating details to fill any holes he perceived in an existing story, or rewriting myths to match his sensibilities. As a result of this, the Prose Edda version of any and all myths have been called into question, usually with great justification. At the time an earlier version of this appendix was written, it was using the theory that two versions of this myth were available, and as a division between Snorri's version and an earlier version it appeared that one could be discounted. However, as a result of further research, it has become apparent that the Baldr myth is very likely one of the most complicated and esoteric of all Norse religious imagery, and that ignoring or discounting any version is a mistake. While any heathen source is going to have more historic, academic, and spiritual value than the versions presented by Snorri and Saxo, by ignoring the development of this myth into its later Christianisation, a deeper insight into the simultaneous changes in the Nordic consciousness is lost. In this development, Snorri changes many important and distinct details from the earlier versions: Most obviously, the Prose Edda refers to Höðr as blind on several occasions. As this is unattested in any other source, something which is so conspicuous in its absence that to suggest this is true in Baldrs draumar or Völuspá is absurdity. Additionally, the name Höðr means "warrior" or "war", a fact which has never been reconciled with the notion of his blindness. In addition to this, Höðr is named both as a warrior, and as Baldrs killer, in every other context, without a single reference or kenning to indicate Höðr had assistance in the slaying of Baldr, outside of the Prose Edda. Other than in the Prose Edda and the references addressed earlier in this piece, there is no reference or kenning to indicate Loki was in any way involved with the death of Baldr. Finally, the Prose Edda refers to Baldr in a manner unknown to other versions, considering him pure, peaceful, and loved by all. In any other text which describes his character, he is seen as no different from any other noble warrior, and as willing to act in a deceptive or underhanded manner as any other lord. Taking these notable changes from any other version of the Baldr myth, in addition to the facts that while the authors of Völuspá and Baldrs draumar both mention Loki's punishment, do so in a manner clearly unrelated to Baldr's death, and the problems in Lokasenna which cannot be resolved if read with the notion that Loki has any responsibility in the killing, it becomes clear that Snorri's version is no less altered for a Christian audience than Saxo's, from the original heathen poems. Centuries later, the Snorri version, being the easiest to obtain and understand, became the common version to translate in other languages, however the English versions were altered even further, as the most notable translators were the deeply religious Sir James Frazier and Viktor Rydberg, both of whom made the imagery more blatantly Christianised. As a result, Baldr and Loki have come to be considered Norse equivalents of Christ and the Devil, even though this is true to the character of neither. As a modern heathen, I will always recognise the debt we owe to Snorri Sturluson for giving us the only forms of numerous myths and elucidating on many aspects of Norse legend and history. At the same time, he cannot be trusted for preserving the myths in a form true to earlier forms, and whenever a heathen version of a myth is available, it is preferred. To anyone who will always prefer Snorri's version over another, I would recommend they re-read his forward to Gylfaginning and remind themselves that according to Snorri, the Æsir were con-artists from Asia who tricked others into worshipping them. Finally, in the twentieth century, the debate has continued on how much reliability to give to Snorri. I have been given references about how Snorri was criticised in his own time for numerous problems in the Prose Edda, but when I checked these references they primarily dealt with poetics and political differences, and not with inaccuracies in the myths. Rather, a possible answer comes from Georges Dumézil, in his work Loki. He points out that in the Cycle of the Narts, from the Ossets living in the northern Caucasus, there are similar figures to Snorri's versions of Loki and Baldr. These figures, Syrdon and Saslan, interact in several myths, and finally Syrdon brings about the death of Saslan in an almost identical manner to Baldr's death in the Prose Edda. Dumézil suggests that they have a common origin in a Proto-Indo-European story, and that Snorri knew a version which was older than recorded elsewhere. However, by Snorri's time, Icelandic people were well-travelled along the Volga river, with numerous trade routes which had existed for hundreds of years. It is entirely possible that Snorri could have received this story from any of the dozens of Icelandic and Norwegian warriors who had served as guards for the Emperor in Constantinople, or from the hundreds of other traders who travelled that region. When we take this into account, the notion that the myth has such primeval origins with Proto-Indo-European religion, but did not survive in any form except a folktale in the Caucasus and a collection of heathen myths by a thirteenth-century Icelander who made numerous other errors, is clearly cut to pieces by Occam's razor. Unless I am introduced to the kind of further information which would completely change the perspective of all this accumulated indication that Snorri made up his version of the Baldr myth, based on partial information from several sources and an Ossetic myth brought back by a trader, it appears this is precisely what happened. Now maybe a devotee of Baldr can explain the rest of the original heathen myth to me.