Chapters 44-95 - Germanic Mythology

This very circumstance seems to indicate that Phol, Fal, was a common epithet or
surname of Baldur in Germany, and it must be admitted that this meaning must have
appeared to the German mythologists to be confirmed by the Second Merseburg Charm;
for in this way alone could it be explained in a simple and natural manner, that Baldur is
not named in the first line as Odin's companion, although he actually attends Odin, and
although the misfortune that befalls "Baldur's foal" is the chief subject of the narrative,
while Phol on the other hand is not mentioned again in the whole formula, although he is
named in the first line as Odin's companion.
This simple and incontrovertible conclusion, that Phol and Baldur in the Second
Merseburg Charm are identical is put beyond all doubt by a more thorough examination
of the Norse records. In these it is demonstrated that the name Falr was also known in the
North as an epithet of Baldur.
The first books of Saxo are based exclusively on the myths concerning gods and
heroes. There is not a single person, not a single name, which Saxo did not borrow from
the mythic traditions. Among them is also a certain Fjallerus, who is mentioned in Book
4. In the question in regard to the Norse form which was Latinized into Fjallerus, we
must remember that Saxo writes Hjallus (Book 7) for Hjali, and alternately Colo, Collo,
and Collerus (Hist., Books 1, 3, & 8), and that he uses the broken form Bjarbi for Barri
(Hist., Book 8). In accordance with this the Latin form Fjallerus must correspond to the
Norse Falr, and there is, in fact, in the whole Old Norse literature, not a single name to be
found corresponding to this excepting Falr, for the name Fjalarr, the only other one to be
thought of in this connection, should, according to the rules followed by Saxo, be
Latinized into Fjallarus or Fjalarus, but not into Fjallerus.
Of this Fjallerus Saxo relates that he was banished by an enemy, and the report
says that Fjallerus betook himself to the place which is unknown to our populations, and
which is called Ódáins-akur (quem ad locum, cui Undensakre nomen est, nostris ignotum
populis concessisse est fama --Hist. Book 4).
The mythology mentions only a single person who by an enemy was transferred
to Ódáinsakur, and that is Baldur. (Of Ódáinsakur and Baldur's abode there, see Nos. 44-
53.).
The enemy who transfers Falr to the realm of immortality is, according to Saxo, a
son of Horvendillus, that is to say, a son of the mythological Örvandill, Groa's husband
and Svipdag's father (see Nos. 108, 109). Svipdag has already once before been mistaken
by Saxo for Hotherus (see No. 101). Hotherus is, again, the Latin form for Höður. Thus it
is Baldur's banishment by Höður to the subterranean realms of immortality of which we
here read in Saxo where the latter speaks of Fal's banishment to Ódáinsakur by a son of
Orvandil.
When Baldur dies by a flaug hurled by Höður he stands in the midst of a rain of
javelins. He is the center of a mannhringr, 4 where all throw or shoot at him: sumir skjóta
á hann, sumir höggva til, sumir berja grjóti 5 (Gylfaginning 49). In this lies the mythical
explanation of the paraphrase Fal's rain, which occurs in the last strophe of a poem
attributed to the skald Gisli Sursson. In Gisli's saga we read that he was banished on
account of manslaughter, but by the aid of his faithful wife he was able for thirteen years
to endure a life of persecutions and conflicts, until he finally was surprised and fell by the
4 "A human ring," a circle of people.
5 "and all the others should either shoot at him, strike at him, or throw stones at him." Faulkes tr.