The Valkyries passed on. "Baldur is dead!" they said to the empty
fields; and straightway the grass and the wild field-flowers shed
tears.

"Baldur is dead!" said the messenger maidens to the rocks and stones;
and the very stones began to weep. "Baldur is dead!" the Valkyries
cried; and even the old mammoth's bones which had lain for centuries
under the hills, burst into tears, so that small rivers gushed forth
from every mountain's side. "Baldur is dead!" said the messenger
maidens as they swept over silent sands; and all the shells wept
pearls. "Baldur is dead!" they cried to the sea, and to Jötunheim
across the sea; and when the giants understood it, even they wept,
while the sea rained spray to heaven. After this the Valkyries stepped
from one stone to another until they reached a rock that stood alone
in the middle of the sea; then, all together, they bent forward over
the edge of it, stooped down and peeped over, that they might tell
the monsters of the deep. "Baldur is dead!" they said, and the sea
monsters and the fish wept. Then the messenger maidens looked at one
another and said, "Surely our work is done." So they twined their
arms round one another's waists, and set forth on the downward road to
Helheim, there to claim Baldur from among the dead.

After he had sent forth his messenger maidens, Odin had seated himself
on the top of Air Throne that he might see how the earth received his
message. At first he watched the Valkyries as they stepped forth north
and south, and east and west; but soon the whole earth's steaming
tears rose up like a great cloud and hid everything from him. Then
he looked down through the cloud and said, "Are you all weeping?" The
Valkyries heard the sound of his voice as they went all together down