Idunn- Norse GodDeity"Keeper of the Apples"

The Apples of Youth

The gods of Asgard are not inherently immortal. Their youth depends on a single goddess and a basket of golden fruit. When gray creeps into the temples and stiffness settles into the joints, the Æsir eat one of Iðunn's apples and are restored. Without her, they would age and die like mortals.

Iðunn is married to Bragi, the god of poetry.

The Eagle and the Ox

The great myth of Iðunn begins not with her but with an ox that refuses to cook. Odin, Loki, and Hœnir are traveling through wild country and stop to roast their meal over a fire, but no matter how long they tend it, the meat will not brown. The source of the trouble sits in the branches above: an enormous eagle, using magic to keep the flames from working. It offers to release the spell in exchange for a share of the ox. The gods agree, but the eagle swoops down and snatches the choicest cuts, both thighs and both shoulders, and Loki, furious, strikes at it with a long stick.

The stick adheres to the eagle's body, and Loki's hands adhere to the stick, and the eagle takes flight. It drags the trickster over boulders and through thickets of thorn, low enough to smash his legs against the ground, until Loki screams for mercy. The eagle is Þjazi, a giant of terrible power, and he names his price for releasing the god: Loki must lure Iðunn and her apples out of Asgard. Loki agrees. He returns home, finds Iðunn, and tells her he has discovered apples in a nearby forest that rival her own. Would she bring hers along to compare? She follows him through the gates, and Þjazi swoops down in eagle form, seizes her, and carries her to his mountain hall of Þrymheimr.

The Gods Grow Old

With Iðunn gone, the consequences come swiftly. The gods begin to age. Their hair turns gray, their skin wrinkles, their limbs grow heavy and slow. Gods who had fought giants and shaped worlds struggle to climb the steps of their own halls. The Æsir assemble in council, and when the last person seen with Iðunn turns out to be Loki, they seize him and threaten death until he confesses.

Loki agrees to make it right. He borrows Freyja's cloak of falcon feathers, which transforms its wearer into a hawk, and flies north to Þrymheimr. Þjazi is out on the sea, fishing. Iðunn is alone in the hall. Loki transforms her into a nut, grips it in his talons, and flies for Asgard.

Þjazi returns to find his captive gone and gives chase in eagle form. The gods watch from the walls as two birds streak toward them: a small falcon with a nut in its claws, and an enormous eagle closing fast. They pile wood shavings along the base of the wall. The instant Loki clears the rampart, they light the fire. Þjazi, diving too fast to pull up, singes his wings and crashes to earth. The Æsir kill him. Iðunn returns to her true shape, and the gods' youth floods back: gray hair darkening, wrinkles smoothing, strength surging into limbs that had begun to fail.

The killing brought Þjazi's daughter Skaði to Asgard's gates in her father's armor, demanding compensation.

At Ægir's Feast

Iðunn appears once more in the Eddic poems, at the feast in Ægir's hall where Loki turns his tongue against every god present. When Bragi threatens to fight Loki for his insults, Iðunn steps in to calm her husband, urging him not to trade blows in the feast hall. Loki turns on her instead, accusing her of having embraced the slayer of her own brother. The charge is obscure; no surviving source explains it.

The skaldic poet Þjóðólfr of Hvinir depicted Iðunn's kidnapping on a painted shield in his Haustlöng, one of the oldest surviving skaldic poems, composed in the late ninth century.