built on pillars of gold and thatched with silver, where he sat all day giving judgment in all cases of law: his was the best tribunal for both gods and men, for everybody quitted it having had his due.
The foregoing is a summary of the most important passages bearing on Balder in old Norse literature; but I should not have thought it needful to give it at such length had there been any work to which one might refer as reproducing the substance of the various allusions to Balder, without omitting particulars of importance to the line of argument here adopted. The myth, when detailed in a fairly complete form, has the advantage of telling with so much clearness its own tale as to the solar nature of the hero, that it needs no exposition beyond an incidental remark or two by way of comparing or contrasting it with some of the Celtic stories which have been passed in review in my previous remarks. It is needless to observe that the prophetic form, in which alone a part of the story is preserved, is due to Christian and Biblical influence, and especially to the idea of those who saw in Balder a type of Christ, who was to come to make all things new in a new heaven and a new earth; and as Malachi prophesied that 'the sun of righteousness' should 'arise with healing in his wings,' so Balder was to come back and all sorrows were to be healed. It is important to notice Balder's compulsory delay, as it follows from the fact that Balder was not simply the sun, but the summer sun, whose return is witnessed by the dwellers in the North only after protracted waiting. Balder's obscurer brother descends after him to the abode of Hell, and leaves it the next morning; and his other brother and avenger Vali is of more rapid growth even
