The Spire is essentially a dramatic poem on the lines of [T. S. Eliot's] The Waste Land. Indeed in many ways, it is curiously similar to The Waste Land, and not the least in its power of arousing echoes which constantly refer one out to a variety of works and with varying degrees of significance. In some cases, the echo arouses little more than the pleasing sense of recognition…. At the other extreme, the myth of Balder is as essential to the construction of The Spire as the Grail legend is to The Waste Land and any reading which does not take account of it must necessarily be a partial one. (pp. 65-6)

The main myth connected with Pangall … is undoubtedly that of the Norse god, Balder. Balder, according to the myth, was rendered invulnerable to all physical hurt by the goddess Frigg, who made all things on...