White flowersMeadMilkA letter to the deadTears freely given
Invocation Approach
Tone
Tender and sorrowing
Address
NannaWife of BaldrNanna Nepsdóttir
Relationship
The one who went with the beloved into the dark
Warning
She died of grief do not ask her to make mourning smaller
Resonance
The bereaved those who follow a beloved into loss
Symbols
Funeral pyreRingWhite flowersBreidablik
Mythology Summary
Nanna is Baldr's wife and Forseti's mother (Gylfaginning 22), and when Baldr is killed she dies of grief at his funeral and is laid on the pyre with him; Hermóðr, riding to Hel, finds the two of them together there, and Hel allows that Baldr may return if all things weep (Gylfaginning 49). Saxo Grammaticus tells a very different, euhemerised version of the same triangle, in which Nanna is a mortal princess fought over by Balderus and Hotherus. She has no cult, no myth of her own, and no role outside Baldr's death.
Modern Practice
Nanna is called by the bereaved, especially by those whose grief is for someone they cannot follow: the practice is to grieve out loud, to put the flowers on the pyre, and to let the dead be accompanied.