Hodr was the blind god of the Norse — a son of Odin and brother of the radiant Baldr, whose hand, guided by the malice of Loki, threw the mistletoe dart that killed the best of the gods. A tragic, unwitting instrument rather than a villain, Hodr is the blind brother whose unknowing act set in motion the doom of the gods.
The Blind God
Hodr (Old Norse Höðr) was one of the Aesir, a son of Odin and the queen Frigg, and so a brother of Baldr. His defining trait was his blindness: he was strong, but he could not see, and his lack of sight set him apart from the other gods, keeping him at the edges of their games and gatherings. He bore his blindness without malice; he was no schemer, but a god marked by misfortune, present at the great tragedy of the gods through no fault of his own design.
The Throwing of the Mistletoe
When the gods, having made Baldr invulnerable to all things, took to the merry sport of hurling weapons at him to watch them bounce away, Hodr stood apart, for he was blind and had nothing to throw and could not see to take aim. The trickster Loki, who had discovered the one thing that could harm Baldr — the mistletoe — came to the blind god and asked why he did not honour his brother by joining the game. When Hodr explained that he was blind and weaponless, Loki pressed a dart of mistletoe into his hand and offered to guide his aim. Trusting and unsuspecting, Hodr threw — and the mistletoe pierced Baldr and killed him. The blind god had slain the shining god, all unknowing, the helpless tool of Loki's spite.
The Vengeance of Vali
Baldr's death cried out for vengeance, but it could not be taken upon Loki at once, nor easily upon a brother who had acted without knowledge or will. So Odin fathered a son for the express purpose of avenging Baldr: Vali, who was born and grew to full strength in a single day, and who slew Hodr to pay for Baldr's death. Thus Hodr too fell, the unwitting killer paying with his life for a deed that was never truly his own — a chain of death and vengeance that deepened the gathering darkness over the gods.
The Reconciliation After the End
Yet Hodr's story, like Baldr's, holds a final note of hope. It was foretold that after Ragnarök, when the old world has burned and the surviving gods gather in the new and cleansed world, Baldr and Hodr will both return from the dead and be reconciled, dwelling together in peace — the slain brother and the brother who slew him, their tragedy healed at last in the world reborn. Hodr endures as one of myth's most poignant figures: the blind innocent whose hand was turned to murder, and who is promised, in the end, forgiveness and a return.
The blind god threw the dart that killed the best of the gods, never seeing what his hand was made to do — and is promised, after the world ends, to return and be reconciled with the brother he slew.