Bangin’ prose

I think this is my favourite quote from the Prose Edda:

Then was the body of Baldr borne out on shipboard; and when his wife, Nanna the daughter of Nep, saw that, straightway her heart burst with grief, and she died; she was borne to the pyre, and fire was kindled. Then Thor stood by and hallowed the pyre with Mjöllnir; and before his feet ran a certain dwarf which was named Litr; Thor kicked at him with his foot and thrust him into the fire, and he burned. People of many races visited this burning: First is to be told of Odin, how Frigg and the Valkyrs went with him, and his ravens; but Freyr drove in his chariot with the boar called Gold-Mane, or Fearful-Tusk, and Heimdallr rode the horse called Gold-Top, and Freyja drove her cats. Thither came also much people of the Rime-Giants and the Hill-Giants. Odin laid on the pyre that gold ring which is called Draupnir; this quality attended it, that every ninth night there dropped from it eight gold rings of equal weight. Baldr’s horse was led to the bale-fire with all his trappings…

I think it’s the flippant way with which Thor just kicks an innocent little dwarf (which was named Litr!) into the fire, to his death. As far as I can recall, poor Litr was not mentioned in Snorri’s Edda before then, and Thor had no particular beef with him. It’s somewhat akin to Luke Skywalker booting an unimportant Ewok into Vader’s funeral pyre at the end of Return of the Jedi. That didn’t happen, of course, but I’m sure that George Lucas will be more than happy to do another special edition featuring my edits sometime soon.

I’m naming a character Litr, in memory of this heroic dwarf.