Thus one of the two main incidents of Balder's myth is reproduced in
the great midsummer festival of Scandinavia. But the other main
incident of the myth, the burning of Balder's body on a pyre, has
also its counterpart in the bonfires which still blaze, or blazed
till lately, in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden on Midsummer Eve. It
does not appear, indeed, that any effigy is burned in these
bonfires; but the burning of an effigy is a feature which might
easily drop out after its meaning was forgotten. And the name of
Balder's balefires (_Balder's Balar_), by which these midsummer
fires were formerly known in Sweden, puts their connexion with
Balder beyond the reach of doubt, and makes it probable that in
former times either a living representative or an effigy of Balder
was annually burned in them. Midsummer was the season sacred to
Balder, and the Swedish poet Tegner, in placing the burning of
Balder at midsummer, may very well have followed an old tradition
that the summer solstice was the time when the good god came to his
untimely end.
Pages:
1828
1829
1830
1831
1832
1833
1834
1835
1836
1837
1838
1839
1840
1841
1842
1843
1844
1845
1846
1847
1848
1849
1850
1851
1852