Mythology

Baldr is not a Norse God that gets much attention these days. Baldr was a God of goodness and light and so on. He had a dream that he would die, and so his mother went to all things on the earth and extracted from them a promise that they would not hurt her son. All things agreed, save one. The Mistletoe made no promise, as he was not asked, being so small and forgettable.

Thus Baldr was immune to all things and it pleased the Gods to test his invulnerability by throwing things at him. Loki, trickster god, found Baldr's blind brother, Hod, and asked him why he wasn't throwing things at Baldr. Hod said that he was blind. And so Loki placed in his hands a sprig of mistletoe and pointed him in the right direction, and thus Hod slew his brother, though blameless.

Odin sent one of his sons to Hel, keeper of the spirits of the dead, to petition her to return Baldr to the Gods. And we pick up the story from the Prose Eddas (Jean Young Translation).

In the moming he asked Hel if Baldr might ride home with him, telling her how much the gods were weeping. Hel said, however, that this test should be made as to whether Baldr was loved as much as people said. "If everything in the world, both dead or alive, weeps for him, then he shall go back to the Aesir, but he shall remain with Hel if anyone objects or will not weep." . . .

'Thereupon the Aesir sent messengers throughout the whole world to ask for Baldr to be wept out of Hel; and everything did that - men and beasts, and the earth, and the stones and trees and all metals - just as you will have seen these things weeping when they come out of frost and into the warmth. When the messengers were coming home, having made a good job of their errand, they met with a giantess sitting in a cave; she gave her name as Thökk. They asked her to weep Baldr out of Hel. She answered:

Thökk will weep dry tears
at Baldr's embarkation; the old fellow's son
was no use to me alive or dead, let Hel hold what she has.

We see a reflection of Hel's request in the current Conservative "wisdom" regarding the most effective way to bring peace. Hel demanded all things weep for Baldr; conservatives demand that all strive for war. Only by showing total unity can dictators be deterred. Says Frank J. Gaffney, Jr., ". . . they should learn a signal lesson from the now-nearly-accomplished liberation of Iraq: War is more likely to be made unnecessary if would-be critics support the President, than by their opposing him."

Thus if we want peace, we must support war, each and every one of us.

Gaffney says this as the Administration is apparently considering an invasion of Syria, and he paints a happy picture of us liberating Syria and Lebanon, if we get to invade Syria. So maybe avoiding the war is not something he's 100% behind.