Hother (Höðr)

Hother is Saxo's version of the slayer of Baldr — but where the myth makes Höðr a blind, tricked innocent, Saxo turns him into a brave and gifted mortal prince, a musician, swimmer, and warrior who loves and wins the princess Nanna, and so becomes the rival of Balder, here a demigod son of Odin who also desires her. Their struggle is a long, strange war of mortal against half-god, in which Hother is aided by woodland maidens and a magic sword and at last kills the all-but-invulnerable Balder. Saxo's telling drags the bright tragic myth of Baldr's death down into the world of human rivalry and jealousy — a love-triangle settled by the sword, rather than a god's doom engineered by Loki. The same death the Eddas mourn as the gods' great loss, retold as one ambitious prince's hard-won victory over another.