Baldrs Draumar: That One Time the Son of Odin and God of Light Suffered From Depression

“Ho∂r will the hero; helward send; he will Baldr slay; the blameless god; and end the life; of Ó∂inn’s son.”
-Baldrs Draumar, Poetic Edda

Since the first time I was exposed to the story of the death of Baldr back in 2012 when I listened to Amon Amarth’s “Hermod’s Ride to Hel”, this lay from the Norse Eddas has fascinated me more than all others (yes, even the one that ends with Thor crossdressing and slaughtering a room of giants while wearing a wedding dress). However, it didn’t fascinate me because of incredible feats of strength or heroism, or intrinsic morality being shown through deeds, or some great moral to take away from it at the end, but rather because this lay actually tackles the topic of depression, which is hard to wrap your head around when you come to find this pre-10th century story understands and explains depression far better than most do today, more than 1100 years later.

Baldr, son of Odin and the God of Light, went through weeks of nightmarish fits. He didn’t feel right. No matter what, no matter how hard those around him tried to help, he couldn’t shake the feeling of dread. These nightmares would haunt him with omens of his death and losing those he loved. His brothers and sisters worried about him, his friends worried about him, and his mother most of all worried about him because this perfect child - for that is what Baldr was, a beautiful man with few flaws and unrivaled kindness - was depressed. Baldr, above all, was the most beloved of the gods. He was generous, joyful, brave, and kind, and his kin loved being around him, for he always gladdened their hearts and left them better and happier people. For what reason did someone such as this have to be depressed? Nevertheless, he was, and his parents, Frigg and Odin, could not bare it any longer.

Odin wasted no time in investigating the source of his depression. He mounted sleipnir, his eight-legged steed, and rode to Hel to consult a dead seeress who undoubtedly had answers. He arrived in Hel to find the halls decorated as if they were preparing for a party or an honored guest. Odin, under the guise of a wanderer, asked the seeress “for what reason are the halls of Hel decorated in such a splendid manner?” and the seeress, not knowing who the wanderer was, answered “why, we await the arrival of the beautiful Baldr.” with a twisted excitement.

Odin hastily returned to Asgard to tell Frigg of this. “Nothing shall harm my beautiful son!” Frigg swore, and she would have the entire world swear this as well. Frigg journeyed to every corner of the cosmos, and had each and every entity living and dead swear an oath to never harm Baldr. Well, all except one: the anodyne mistletoe. 

Though this did not ease Baldr’s mind, and depression remained a heavy weight on his spirit, his kin made a game of throwing rocks and various weapons and objects at him which had swore to never harm him. Rocks, axes, bricks, plates, and cups all bounced off of him without harm, and many spectators gathered to watch what would strike Baldr next with barely a tickle. Baldr’s twin brother, Ho∂r, stood away from the game, as he was the blind god of shadow, whom the other gods ignored and had no interest in, except for Loki. Loki convinced this poor, blind, misunderstood god to participate in the game by throwing a sharpened branch of mistletoe at his brother. Ho∂r, of course, had no way of knowing mistletoe did not swear the oath, but Loki did, and Loki only wanted chaos. 

One can imagine the look of confusion on Ho∂r’s face when he threw the branch, and all he heard were the screams and cries of gods around him. The branch had pierced and killed Baldr. The gods were dumb and silent in fear, for the death of Baldr was the portent of the apocalypse (a future topic). 

You, as the reader, probably already came up with several different layers of metaphors and morals one can take from this short story, and that is the beauty of it. In this short story more than a thousand years old, it demonstrates such depth of narrative that it may boggle one’s mind to see the literary talent those of the early middle ages held for those the rest of the civilized world regarded as mere “savages” and “barbarians”.

One may take note of how incredibly well the vikings seemed to grasp the concept of depression. Though, it makes sense, doesn’t it? As mentioned in my very first post, “What is a Skald?”, I alluded to the fact that the vikings spent absurdly long amounts of time huddled indoors around a fire. If we think we get bad seasonal depression here in the United States, one can only imagine what seasonal depression meant for people who didn’t see the sun for months, or didn’t have netflix to take their minds off of the weather, or couldn’t simply fetch their comfort food from the fridge and heat it in the microwave.

Further, they understood that depression need not have a source. Depression doesn’t have a face, depression doesn’t have a target demographic. Depression can happen to anyone, yet no one seems to understand it, and what better way to portray the indiscriminate nature of this condition than to give it to the god of light; the god who, to everyone else, seems perfect, beautiful, and kind?

The way his friends and family handle the situation is oddly comparative to how it is handled today. Everyone wants to help, yet no one can really help. Depression can simply be an imbalance of chemicals, or it can be caused by an experience, outlook, philosophy, or upbringing that has ingrained this sense of dread into one’s mind when it contrasts with reality. These “nightmares” haunt those with depression, and make it hard to feel, hard to care, and hard for those who care enough to help. Frigg believes that simply having every conceivable cause of pain swear an oath to not harm Baldr was the solution, yet it was still the nightmares, these inner demons, that were causing him the distress, rather than some outward source of pain.

As someone who doesn’t suffer from chronic depression, but commonly finds himself close to those who suffer from it, I can relate to the position of Frigg and Odin. They desperately try to find logical causes, and fix or prevent those potential causes for depression. Yet, after theoretically eliminating all logical causes for depression in Baldr, he continues to not only feel depression, but eventually meets his worst case scenario: dying by the hand of a weapon thought too minor to harm anyone. And that’s really what this is all about isn’t it? Causes of depression to others may seem small and insignificant to others, and result in the attempted therapy session being a simple “How can that be depressing you? Here is a list of logical reasons it shouldn’t depress you.”

And this, this is why these stories hold so much weight to me and many others like me. These stories are supposedly from a time without heart, a time without morals, a time without God or enlightenment. The fact that we can look at these stories a thousand years later and still learn lessons of our own being, and realize that humans have always been keenly aware of the many facets of existence (such as Lao-Tzu’s “Tao” philosophy turning out to be true with the discovery of the concept of energy) and what it means to be human even from a time when we were supposed to be backwards savages who didn’t know left from right is quite a magnificent thing to take away from these stories. Maybe we aren’t as far ahead of the people who told these stories a thousand years ago? Sure, we have technological marvels that could be perceived as magic in the right context, but do all of our advancements truly make up for the fact that we’ve seemingly forgotten our humanity, or where we come from in our modern age? Or, should we continue the ideals of the romantic era and look to our roots to learn the best way forward? Perhaps there isn’t a correct answer, but it is an important question nonetheless that best be answered sooner than later.