Norse Myths · Part 11 · Towards the end · B2–C1
The Death of Baldur
Part 11 of the Norse Myths: Baldur, the most beautiful and best-loved of the gods, dreams of his death. His mother Frigg makes everything in the world promise never to harm him, everything except one small plant. Loki finds out, and puts a dart of mistletoe into the hand of Baldur’s blind brother. Quantifiers and exceptions (everything, nothing, all… except, apart from, every single, none of), the passive with modals (could not be harmed), and the language of grief, with Philo, Sophia, Marcos and Demetria. The story is about the death of a god and the grief of his family.
Tonight’s story is the saddest in Norse mythology, and the beginning of the end of the world. Baldur, Odin’s son, was so good and so beautiful that light shone from him. And he began to have dreams of his own death.
They tried, Demetria. His mother Frigg went to every single thing in the world and made it promise not to hurt him: fire, water, iron, stone, every animal and every illness. Everything promised. Almost everything. Tonight’s grammar is the grammar of “everything except”.
Baldur is the son of Odin and his wife Frigg. He is the most beautiful, the wisest and the kindest of the gods, and everyone loves him. When he began to dream that he would die, Frigg travelled through all the worlds and took an oath from fire and water, iron and every metal, stones, earth, trees, illnesses, animals, birds, poisons and snakes, that they would never harm him. Then the gods played a game: they threw spears and stones…
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