The Gylfaginning contains an important tenet of the Heathen worldview; the animistic belief that all things are ensouled.
Frigg receives oaths that Baldr won’t be harmed by “fire and water, iron and all kinds of metal, stones, the earth, trees, diseases, the animals, the birds, poison, snakes”, implying that all of these things had the sentience and agency to do so.
She believed mistletoe to be too young to swear an oath, and later on, “people and animals and the earth and the stones and trees and every metal” weep upon hearing of Baldr’s death.
Painting: Frigg takes an oath of all things by Mikhail Fiodorov.
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