When the shining god Baldr dies, the Æsir give him the most splendid funeral of the North – upon Hringhorni, the greatest of all ships.
Baldr’s body is carried onto the ship and a mighty pyre built upon it. But when the gods try to launch Hringhorni, it will not move. They summon the giantess Hyrrokkin from Jötunheim. She comes riding a wolf, with vipers for reins, and pushes the ship off with a single shove so powerful that fire springs from the rollers and the whole earth quakes. Thor, angered at the raw force, is ready to raise his hammer.
Baldr’s wife Nanna collapses dead of sorrow and is laid beside him on the pyre. Odin lays his ring Draupnir with them and whispers a secret in his dead son’s ear. Then Thor kindles the pyre. So the fairest ship of the North burns out to sea with the purest of the gods.
Snorri paints the scene in glowing colours. To the funeral come all the powers: Odin with the valkyries and the ravens, Freyr on the golden boar Gullinbursti, Heimdall on his steed Gulltopp, Frigg and the goddesses, even frost-giants and mountain-giants. As Thor hallows the pyre with his hammer, a dwarf named Litr runs before his feet – and Thor kicks him straight into the fire.
Such ship burials are no mere poet’s image: the graves of Oseberg, Gokstad and Sutton Hoo show that powerful dead were indeed buried with whole ships. Whether they were ever pushed burning out to sea, or burned and buried on land, is disputed – the myth of Hringhorni raises a real, awe-inspiring practice into the cosmic.
Baldr’s Death · Baldr · Hermod’s Ride to Hel · Draupnir.
Snorri Sturluson, Gylfaginning 49. Rudolf Simek, Dictionary of Northern Mythology; on ship burial: Neil Price and others.