I'm

M.

The Welcome to Spirits podcast, a boozy dive into mythology, legends, and folklore.

Every week we pour a drink and learn about a new story from around the world.

I'm Amanda.

And I'm Julia. And this episode 325, all about Balder and his gait? Is that true? Is that anything?

That is something. We'll talk about that at the end. It's very great reference. Do you know anything about Balder besides that?

Do I get the video game points? No, I know nothing about Balder. Okay. Well, Amanda,

it's not like totally surprising that you don't know a ton about Balder because Balder is,

while a very important character in Norse mythology, one that does not have a lot of stories

about him. But the story that we tell most often is one of the most important in all

of Norse mythology. But okay. First off, welcome to another segment of it's Norse of course.

We love It's Norse of course. It's our new series talking all about the different gods and goddesses

of Norse mythology. And so with our Odin episode, we discussed the creation story of Norse mythology

and Ragnarok, the end of the world. And of course, Odin was an incredibly important part of

both of these stories. But when we talk about the greater cosmology of Norse mythology,

one of the most fundamental moments is focused on Balder, and more specifically, his death.

Fascinating. Now, Julia, this is our second series, annual year-long series, where we dive deep into the cosmology and mythology of one tradition. And we did this, of course, last year with It's All Greek to me. It gets funnier every

time I say it. And something that would help me, I think, and maybe the listeners, to remember

each of these stories as we build on them, kind of episode over episode, is to assign like a

homeric epithet to each character. So for Odin, we talked about how he's belagered, he's got too much responsibility

on his shoulders, he's a parentified child. And so you know how in The Odyssey, of course, it's like,

...