Baldur -a knife to recover the light from the underworld
A knife can be so much more than a tool for cutting things apart. The stile and quality of a knife can, if used intentionally, invocate a certain spirit with which the knife is used and carried.
This will be the knife accompaning me on my pilgrimage. I intend it to be a allie in practical and spiritual matters.
The knife carries symbolism from the Baldur myth, with which I want to illustrate the purpose of the pilgrimage.
The Baldur myth:
Baldur the god of light and joy was the god most beloved among the other gods. One day he started to get nightmares about his demise, which of course scared the other gods, especialy his mother Frigg. So she went out to take an oath from all the things and creatures in all the nine worlds, so that noone and nothing would harm Baldur. When see returned from her journey she wittnessed a crotesque scene. All the other gods would throw blades, arrows and other dangerous objects onto Baldur, but of course nothing would harm him. In this spectacle Loki the god of treachery approached Frigg, asking her if she really went to all the creatures. To this Frigg replied: “Well the mistletoe seemed so harmless, I did not ask it, for it surely would not harm anyone ”. So Loki took a little bit of mistletoe and carved a spear from it. He handed it to Hodr, the blind god and brother of Baldur, asking him if he would not like to participate in the raving celebration of Baldurs invulnerablility. He helped Hodr aim, the arrow flew and to the horror of everyone hit Baldur who dropped dead on the spot. They cremated Baldur on his ship and with great sadness the gods had to put his wife the goddess of joy and peace next to him, for she died of grief. Odin layed his ring Draupnir, the ring of eternal return and abudance onto the pyre. Now Baldur could descend into the underworld, where a special seat was already waiting for him next to Hel, the goddess of the underworld.
In an effort to retrieve the god of light and joy from the clutch of death, Hermod one of Odins sons ventured out into the underworld to make a deal with Hel. She agreed to let Baldur go if all the creaturs would weep for him -and all of them did, exept a giantess who really was Loki in disguise.
Now that the light and joy was gone for good, a long winter held everyone in it’s cold embrace.
It is prophesised that once Ragnarok, the great battle of the gods at the end of this age, would be over, Baldur will emerge on a white horse, bringing a new order into a new age.
This myth resonated with me on many different levels. On the personal level I would identify my child-self with the figure of Baldur, I was very much joyous and radiant as a child, thinking nothing could harm me, but then during school years some of this radiance was sent into the underworld and adulthood proved my invulnerability wrong.
On a collective level I feel we are very much in the Fimbulwinter, a long winter of the soul, the meaning crisis. The Baldur myth can be interpreted as being a symbol of the eternally recurring of cycles. Of day and night, of summer and winter of the blossoming of human flourishing and their demise.
I have the feeling that I aswell as the collective soul have had enough fimbulwinter and that it is time for the god of light and joy to introduce a new era. The pilgrimage is expression of a feeling of Kairos, in this case the feeling that I can contribute to allievation of the meaning crisis.
The unfolding of that Kairos is symbolized by the three sigils imprinted on the sheath:
The first is Wunjo: The temporary feeling of bliss. -Baldur is still alive and at the height of his power
The second Hagalaz: The great conflict -Baldurs enters the underworld
The third Dagaz: The new day -Baldur returns with a new order
The knife has already been evoking stories:
For years I’ve been calling my workshop “the underworld” because it was in a cellar that was not particulary pretty. Now during the crafting of the knive I pondered ways of how I could ritualize the process of emerging with it from the underworld -maybe work through the night and emerge with it from the underworld with the first slivers of sun? But the day it was finished I was finished aswell and just wanted to go home, somehow my legs took a different turn than usual and so I bumped into a lady with whom I developed a beautiful story aswell but had already said my goodbyes to a week earlier. (Click here to read “the cringe is dead”). Instictivly I pulled out the knife, unwrapped it in the middle of passing pedestrians and the first gaze that fell upon the knife, was through the faszinated eyes of Ellie, a name consisting of “god” and “light”.
It was a worthy baptism for the knife.
Since then I’ve been searching for mistletoe add it to the symbol as to expand it’s symbolism. A couple of weeks later, I ended up in a castle in France with a mysterious forest with more mistletoe then I’ve never seen before. Im exited to see to what kind of stories the harvest will lead to.
