The Gods of Chivalry and Salvation

Balder and Hodur might most appropriately be called the Correctors. The world wasn't created perfectly, but it was created good. Yet there being some ills left in the world, some kinks that have not quite yet been worked out, the Asvins, the Alcis's function was to travel around the world each day with the Sun and the Moon, making excursions down to earth where they saw things going awry, and correct them. And that is why they included a brother who was a master of fair judgement and mercy, and a brother who was strong-armed and protective, a hero. Together, working together, they were able to correct the ills of the world as they arose. The powers of ill aimed particularly at these two, because they knew if they could bring them down, the world would be that much more subject to ill. The tragedy, therefore, in the mythic saga of the old times, is that this world, wonderfully good, lost its Correctors, its Saviours, who would keep things in proportionate balance and rescue those in need of rescuing, and therefore with their loss, the ill of the world encroaches even more.

Balder and Hodur were the Gods of Chivalry : its Courteous and Merciful side, and its Heroic and Protective Side. In the modern world, the hero works to fight back the encroachers, so that soul, that good, may have a place in this world, where ill wraps its tendrils so tightly.

However, not all is lost. The world, for all of the ill that has wrapped itself around it like the snake, still holds good. The Gods have great faith in good, and they still ward that good well, and they still may be called upon to strengthen our sense of that good. There was a time when they intervened more directly. Now, they merely hold back the ill from reaching more fingers into the world, and let men decide where they shall stand and where they shall fall. And when we say that the Gods mainly focus now on keeping bound the powers of ill that they might not further encroach into the world, let it be noted that many wights of ill have already made their home here in the days of old. To us has fallen the lot, to a large degree, of whether we shall be on the side of the Saviours, or on the side of the ill.