The Funeral of Balder

The gods took up the dead body and brought it to the seashore where stood Balder's ship "Hringham," which passed for the largest in the world. Balder's dead body was put on the funeral pile, on board the ship, and his wife Nanna was so struck with grief at the sight that she died from a broken heart, and her body was burned on the same pile as her husband's. There was a vast concourse of various kinds of people at Balder's obsequies. First came Odin accompanied by Frigga, the Valkyrie, and his ravens; then Frey in his chariot drawn by Gullinbursti, the boar; Heimdall rode his horse Gulltopp, and Freya drove in her chariot drawn by cats. There were also a great many Frost giants and giants of the mountain present. Balder's horse was led to the pile fully caparisoned and consumed in the same flames with his master.

But Loki did not escape his deserved punishment. When he saw how angry the gods were, he fled to the mountain and there built himself a hut with four doors, so that he could see every approaching danger. He invented a net to catch the fishes, such as fisherman have used since his time. But Odin found out his hiding place and the gods assembled to take him. He, seeing this, changed himself into a salmon, and lay hid among the stones of the brook. But the gods took his net and dragged the brook, and Loki, finding he must be caught, tried to leap over the net; but Thor caught him by the tail and compressed it, so that salmons ever since have had that part remarkably fine and thin. They bound him with chains and suspended a serpent over his head, whose venom falls upon his face drop by drop. His wife Siguna sits by his side and catches the drops as they fall, in a cup; but when she carries it away to empty it, the venom falls upon Loki, which makes him howl with horror, and twist his body about so violently that the whole earth shakes, and this produces what men call earthquakes.