Höðr

Höðr is the blind god of Norse mythology, the tragic figure who, guided by Loki's hand, killed his own brother Baldr and set the death of the gods in motion. His name became a byword for darkness, sorrow, and the blindness of fate.

Who is Höðr?

Höðr, also spelled Hod or Hodur, is one of the Æsir, a son of Odin and brother of the beloved Baldr. Snorri Sturluson describes him as blind and immensely strong, and notes that the gods would rather his name were never invoked, for his deed would long be remembered. Associated with winter and the dark half of the year, he stands as Baldr's shadow-twin: where one is light, the other is unseeing night. The rune Isa, the still ice of stasis and hidden things, suits his cold and sightless nature.

The death of Baldr

When Baldr began to dream of his own death, his mother Frigg extracted an oath from every thing in the world not to harm him — overlooking only the mistletoe, thought too young to swear. The gods amused themselves by hurling weapons at the now-invulnerable Baldr. Höðr, blind, stood apart from the game until Loki approached him, placed a dart of mistletoe in his hand, and guided his aim. The shaft pierced Baldr and killed him — the first death among the gods and the spark of Ragnarök. Höðr had acted without malice, an unwitting instrument of Loki's.

Symbols and legacy

Vengeance came swiftly: Váli, a son of Odin begotten for the purpose, killed Höðr while only a day old. Yet Höðr's story does not end in condemnation. In the Völuspá's vision of the world reborn after Ragnarök, Baldr and Höðr return together from the realm of the dead and dwell in peace — the killer and the killed reconciled at last. Höðr endures as one of mythology's great tragic figures: proof of how easily deception can turn the innocent into the agent of catastrophe.