 | The Descent of Frea |  |
INTRODUCTION.
The gods of the Northern nations were not, like those of the Greeks, imagined to be immortal; they were exempted neither from pain nor death, and even those who escaped these evils during a series of ages, were at length to be destroyed at the last day, or, as it is stiled in the Sagas, “the Twilight of the Gods:” till that time should arrive, they were supposed to dwell in Valhalla, and to enjoy in a supreme degree those luxuries and pleasures which the people who worshipped them considered as the most desirable.
Balder, the son of Odin, was highly celebrated among the gods for his exquisite beauty and consummate eloquence; his office as a deity was to guide the horse of day, called Skinfax, in his diurnal course, and he is therefore properly to be considered as the god of the sun. The death of Balder was effected by the artifices of Lok, the most malicious and baneful of the Gothic deities; Lok however dared not openly to destroy him with his own hand, but for this purpose he presented a spear of peculiar power to another of the sons of Odin, Hoder, who with this enchanted weapon unintentionally pierced his brother to the heart. After this misfortune, the soul of Balder, in conformity to the tenets of the Gothic religion, was supposed to descend to the dwelling of Hela, the goddess of the infernal realms. The grief in heaven on account of the death of Balder was extreme; Frea, the goddess of beauty, was peculiarly afflicted by the loss of her lover, and resolved to undertake a journey to the regions of death, in hopes of obtaining by her entreaties the release of Balder. This descent of Frea, and the success which attended it, are the subjects of the following Masque.
| The Descent of Frea | |