Chapter CLXVII: Section VI: Baldur and Hodur

Most beautiful of all the gods was Baldur, the fair white god, mild, beautiful, and eloquent,—beloved but fore-doomed to death. His story is well known. His mother, Frigga, vainly took an oath of all created things not to be the instrument of his fate,—she omitted the mistletoe; and Lok, the destroyer, having, in the guise of a sympathetic old woman, beguiled her into betraying her omission, placed a shaft of the magic plant in the hands of the blind god, Hodr, when all the Aasir were in sport directing their harmless weapons against the breast of their favourite. Baldur was slain, and his beautiful wife, Nanna, died of grief for his loss. Even then Hela would have relented, and have given him back, provided every living thing would have wept for him; but one stern giantess among the rocks refused her tears, and Baldur remains in the realms of death, until after all his brethren shall have perished in the last great conflict, when with them he shall be revivified in the times of the restitution of all things, so remarkably promised in these ancient myths.

As to the source of his name, authorities are not agreed. Baldr is a prince in several Teutonic languages, and the royal family of the Visigoths were the Balten. Balths, bald, bold, is also a word among them; but Grimm deduces the god’s title from _bjel_, or _baltas_, the word that is the first syllable of the Slavonic Belisarius, and thus would make the Anglian Baldœg mean bright as day. It is the word that lies at the root of _bellus_, pretty, whose derivations are now so universal in Romanized Europe. Others turn the name over to the Bel, or Beli, of the Kelts, or the Eastern Belus; but on the whole, the derivation Baldr, a prince, is the least unsatisfactory.

The legend seems to have been unknown to the German races, or, at least, no trace of it has been found, and the names that constantly occur beginning and ending with _bald_ or _pald_, are supposed merely to mean prince, and not to refer to the god. As an end it is more common than as a beginning, and it is peculiar to the Anglian races, our own Anglo-Saxons, the inhabitants of the Low Countries, and continental Saxons. The names that have become universal all emanated from one or other of these sources.

Baldric, or prince ruler, was Anglo-Saxon; but the Swedes learned it as Balderik, the Poles as Balderyk, the French as Baudri. Baldred, an English-named saint, was bishop of Glasgow; thence, too, the early French took Baldramn, prince raven, which they made Baudrand, and confused with Baldrand, prince of the house, also Baldemar, famous prince, unless this is a confusion with Waldemar.

The most general of these was, however, Baldwine, princely friend, who was very early a feudatory of the empire in Flanders, and the name continued in his family, so as to take strong hold of the population, and to spread into the adjoining lands. Baldwin was the father of William the Conqueror’s Matilda, and the one Baldwinus before the Conquest has very considerably multiplied after it, so that to us Baldwin has all the associations of a Norman name. Its European celebrity was owing to the two knights of Lorraine and Bourg, who reigned successively at Jerusalem after the first Crusade, and left this to be considered as the appropriate Christian name in their short-lived dynasty; and again, it was borne by the unfortunate count who was thrust into the old Byzantine throne only to be demolished by the Bulgarians, or if indeed he ever returned, to be disowned as an impostor by his daughter.

┌────────────┬────────────┬────────────┬────────────┬────────────┐
│ English. │ French. │ German. │ Dutch. │ Italian. │
│Baldwin │Baudouin │Balduin │Boudewijn │Baldovino │
│ │Baudoin │ │ │Balduino │
└────────────┴────────────┴────────────┴────────────┴────────────┘

The Germans have Baldo, the French Baud, both contractions from either Baldwin or Balderich, and there are a good many surnames therefrom in England, France, and Germany.

Examples of Baldegisel, prince pledge, Baldbrecht, Baldemund, Baldeflede, Baldetrude, have also been found, but nowhere are any such forms prevalent.

Baldur’s wife, Nanna, probably comes from _nanthjan_, in Gothic, to be courageous. There are a few Frisians called Nanno, Nanne, Nonne; but it is very probable that this old goddess may have contributed to furnish some of the inherited names now all absorbed in Anne.

Baldur’s unfortunate murderer has, strange to say, many more namesakes. He was Nanna’s brother, blind, and of amazing strength, and is supposed to typify unheeding rashness and violence, in opposition to prudent valour. His name is in Gothic Hathus, in old German Hadu, and in Anglo-Saxon Headho, and is said to come from _headho_, an attack or fight, so that the right way to translate it in the compounds would be by fierce when it begins the name—war when it forms the conclusion.

It has a great many different forms. The old northern Hedinn is believed to be one, belonging first to a semi-fabulous sea-king of the mythic ages, who tried to elope with the Valkyr Hildur. From him the sea was poetically called, in the strange affected versification of the North, the road of Hedinn’s horses. There were eight Hedinns in the _Landnama-bok_, and the word sometimes occurred at the end of the name, as with Skarphedinn, the fierce but generous son of Njal, who dies singing to the last in the flame, with his faithful axe driven deep into the wall that the fire might not spoil its edge.

Tacitus mentions two chiefs whom he calls Catumer and Catualda, and who are supposed to be by interpretation Hadumar, or fierce fame, and Hadupald, or Haduwald, each of which would be fierce prince. Hadumar has lingered in southern France, where it has become Azimar, or Adhémar, the last, the well-known surname of the Grignan family. Hadubrand, fierce sword, is one of the heroes of the most ancient existing poem in Low German. Heddo is to be found as a name of some Frisians, contracted either from this, or from Hadubert, or one of the other compounds. Even ladies were named by this affix, as Haduburg, war protection; Hadulint, war serpent; Haduwig, which the old German name-writer, Luther, makes war refuge.

This last is the only usual form, owing to the saintly fame of a daughter of the Markgraf of Meranie. While one daughter, Agnes, was the victim of Philippe Auguste’s irregular marriage, the happier Haduwig married a duke of Silesia, and shared his elevation to the throne of Poland, where she evinced such piety as to be canonized; and the name she left was borne by a Polish lady in the next century, who converted her husband, the Duke of Lithuania. Thus doubly sainted, all eastern Germany delighted in it, and the French sent it to us; they calling it Hedvige; we took it as Hawoyse, and, descending into Avice, or Avis, it was at one time very common here, and is to be found in almost every old register.

┌───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┐
│ English. │ French. │ German. │ Polish. │
│Havoise │Hedvige │Hedwig │Jadviga │
│Hawoyse │ ————————— │Hedda │ │
│Havoisia │ Italian. │ │ │
│Avice │Edvige │ │ │
│Avicia │ │ │ │
│Avis │ │ │ │
├───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┤
│ Lusatian. │ Esth. │ Lett. │ Hungarian. │
│Hada │Eddo │Edde │Hedviga │
│ │Edo │ │ │
└───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┘

The Spanish Goths, too, had their compounds of Hadu. The Lady Adosinda, whom Southey has placed collecting the corpses of her family in the ruins of the city destroyed by the Moors, is Haduswinth, or fierce strength; and the Portuguese Affonso is from Hadufuns. This last syllable, namely _funs_, means vehemence, and is, in fact, no other than our own undignified _fuss_; Affonso, Afonso, thus mean fierce fuss, though for more euphony, this lofty name of kings may be made into warlike impetuosity.