Balder was the most beloved figure in the Norse cosmos, radiant enough that light shone from his skin, and rendered invulnerable by his mother Frigg's world-spanning campaign of oaths. Then a twig of mistletoe killed him. This episode reconstructs his life from the Poetic Edda, Snorri Sturluson's Prose Edda and Saxo Grammaticus's Gesta Danorum, beginning with the debate between Jacob Grimm's 'white' etymology and the Proto-Germanic root meaning brave and defiant, which suggests a warlike figure softened by Christian-era retelling.

The hosts cover the shared nightmares that sent Odin to raise a seeress in Hel, Merrill Kaplan's reading of the mistletoe as legally too young to swear an oath, Loki guiding the blind Hod's hand, and Vali's same-day vengeance. They then describe the funeral on the ship Hringhorni, launched by the giantess Hyrrokki ...