Seiðr Loom

place

Breiðablik

Baldr's hall, the fairest dwelling in heaven, in a land where nothing unclean may be and where, the poem says, there are fewest baleful runes.

Breiðablik is the hall of Baldr. Grímnismál lists it seventh: Baldr has made himself a dwelling there, "In the land I know that lies so fair, / And from evil fate is free" Grímnismál 12.

Snorri calls it the fairest dwelling in heaven Gylfaginning 17. In his chapter on Baldr he says that "in that place may nothing unclean be" and quotes the same stanza Gylfaginning 22. Brodeur's version of the last line is closer to the Old Norse: the land where there lie "fewest baneful runes", meaning evil signs or curses. Bellows's "from evil fate is free" is a freer rendering of the same words. The two English translations of one stanza thus look more different than the sources do.

The stanza has an obvious irony that many readers have noted: the god whose hall is freest from evil is the one who is killed. Nothing in the texts places the killing at Breiðablik. Snorri sets it at the gods' assembly Gylfaginning 49.

In the sources

Quoted from the hosted translations; each line is checked against the text when the site is built. Select a reference to read it in context.

The seventh is Breithablik; Baldr has there For himself a dwelling set, In the land I know that lies so fair, And from evil fate is free.
Grímnismál 12 The seventh hall in Grímnismál, set in a land free of evil.
Then there is also in that place the abode called Breidablik, and there is not in heaven a fairer dwelling.
Gylfaginning 17 Snorri calls it the fairest dwelling in heaven.
Breidablik 't is called, where Baldr has A hall made for himself: In that land where I know lie Fewest baneful runes.
Gylfaginning 22 Snorri quotes the Grímnismál stanza, here translated more literally.

Myths with Breiðablik

Baldr's dreams and death Baldr dreams of his own death; Odin rides to Hel to question a dead seeress; and, in Snorri's telling, Loki puts a sprig of mistletoe into blind Höðr's hand. The gods lose their brightest member and the slide toward Ragnarök begins. Odin as Grímnir between the fires To win a wager with Frigg, Odin visits his foster-son King Geirröðr in disguise and is tortured between two fires for eight nights. Given a drink by the king's young son, he pours out a vision of the gods' halls and the world-tree, then reveals himself, and the king falls on his own sword.

Related

Baldr Odin and Frigg's son, the brightest and best-loved of the gods. His death by a mistletoe dart, thrown by his blind brother Höðr, is the first great loss on the road to Ragnarök. Nanna Baldr's wife and the mother of Forseti. When she saw Baldr's body carried to his ship her heart burst with grief, and she was burned on his pyre. Forseti Son of Baldr and Nanna, a god of justice whose hall Glitnir, pillared with gold and roofed with silver, is the best court among gods and men. Glitnir Forseti's hall, pillared with gold and roofed with silver, where every quarrel brought before him is settled. Gimlé A golden-roofed hall brighter than the sun, where the righteous will live after Ragnarök; Snorri says it already stands at the southern end of heaven. Valaskjálf A silver-thatched hall built by a god for himself in ancient days; Snorri makes it Odin's hall and places the high seat Hliðskjálf inside it.