Partly out of desperate grief - and partly in defiance of the harshness of the Norns or fates: Odin begs Hermod to ride his own steed, Sleipnir, down to Hell and beg Hela to release Balder.
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This poem draws upon Norse mythology: retelling the story of the murder of Odin's son, Balder, as brought about by the wicked machinations of his half-brother Loki.
It is one of a chain of three reservoirs on the River Balder, a tributary of the River Tees, which it joins at Cotherstone, about 5 miles to the east.
The name Balderton has obscure roots but may have been derived from Balder or Baldur – the Norse god of innocence, beauty, joy, purity, and peace and Odin's second son eventually killed by his blind brother in an accident involving Loki the god of mischief and fire.
His Odin (1831), Thor (1842), and Balder (1842), though influenced by Greek art, display considerable power of independent imagination.
The movement rejected Christianity and sought to re-introduce the Norse pre-Christian system of belief - the adoration of Odin, Thor and Balder.
One of the main attractions is Colossos, a wooden roller coaster, which until the opening of Balder, on 12 April 2003 in the Swedish amusement park Liseberg, was the steepest wooden roller coaster in the world.
Gerda Balder was a Jew who, together with her mother and her son from her first marriage, survived the Theresienstadt concentration camp.
She appears to be the wolf-riding giantess Hyrrokkin who helped the Æsir push Balder's ship into the sea during his funeral, and thus she would be an appropriate image for a funerary monument.