Contemplation

Good day to the Blogosphere!  I am Winter, sometimes known as Hodr's Apprentice; this is my new blog, "Traveling through Hodrsheim."  I hope you will enjoy walking alongside me for a while.  Peace and quiet is a wonderful thing, but companionship has its charms as well.

So, who is this Hodr of whom I speak, and why would he need an apprentice?  In history and mythology, he is the son of Odin and Frigga, and the twin brother of Balder; Hodr is the god of winter in the Norse pantheon, while Balder is the god of summer.  Beloved brothers, each with an important function--and therein lays the tale.

Hodr, being blind, was ruthlessly manipulated into the accidental murder of Balder by Loki the Trickster--and was very shortly thereafter himself murdered in retribution.  But nothing is ever as easy as it sounds... he and Balder both abide in Nibelheim, the realm of those dead who did not die gloriously and heroically in battle; they await the coming of Ragnarok, the battle at the end of all things, when justice shall be served and the world is re-made.  Together the brothers will come forth, reborn, re-made, reconciled, to rule in equity and peace over the New World.

In the meantime, Hodr has become known as the one whose name is never spoken, the god to whom few if any pray--the forgotten son, the image of sorrow and injustice.  I choose to believe that Frigga's tears were for both her lost sons, and for the horror that engulfed them; I choose to believe that Justice must prevail for all beings.