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I honor Iduna,
Beloved Keeper of the Mysteries of the Eternal Now
Treasured Tender of the Apples of Life
You who delight in the well cared for fruit tree
You who delight in a consciously lived life of loving compassion.
Idun, beautiful wife of the god Bragi, the god of music and poetry, might not be as influential as Freya, the wife of great Odin, but all the other gods are nevertheless reliant upon her care: to her falls the all-important task of tending the golden apples that are the fruit of the tree of immortality which grows in Asgard, the realm of the gods. Were the other gods to be denied eating of this wondrous fruit, then they would age and die as surely as any mortal in the world below.
Stories would not be stories if, sooner or later, things did not go awry. Predictably enough, things in this particular story start to go awry when Loki, the troublemaker among the gods, is tricked by the giant Tjarzi to lure Idun into a grove where, he assures her, apples could be found that are even more wondrous and potent than those that grow in Asgard. Now the giants are old enemies of the gods, and Tjarzi knows well-enough what he is up to. Once in the grove he kidnaps Idun, changes into an eagle and flies away with her clutched in his powerful talons.
Can there be any greater horror for a god than to feel the onset of mortality? Denied Idun’s golden apples, the gods begin to age. Limbs begin to stiffen, skin begins to dry, hair begins to thin and grey, as for the first time the gods feel the onset of a long-withheld old age, a winter of years. Under the tree of immortality the priceless golden apples lie ungathered on the cold ground, for Idun alone has access to the tree. And Idun is nowhere to be found.
Oh, how Loki now regrets his rashness! For he as well begins to feel the passing years. He resolves to attempt to reverse what his own short-sightedness has undone. Changing into a swift falcon, he flies to the dwelling of Tjarzi and snatches the captive Idun back to Asgard. High in the celestial realm a huge enraged eagle can be seen chasing a swift falcon. But the gods are already prepared. As Loki with Idun flies past them, they set fire to a great pyre. With its huge wings singed and smouldering, the eagle falls and perishes. Once more Idun can tend to the tree, and provide the gods with the fruit which preserves their immortality. Digesting the fruit, the gods once more feel new life coursing through their veins, as the winter of years gives way to a new spring.
Such stories as Idun’s are timeless, and among the abundant signs of nature’s renewal I feel reassured that Idun continues to tend to her precious apple tree, and the frost giant of winter has been defeated once more!
Center: Idun fallen from Yggdrasil by Rederik Sanders
Emma, what I particularly enjoy about this post is that it touches on so many of those great story themes. The gulf between the world of mortals and the world of the gods, and what happens when the balance between the two is upset, and a magical fruit which is the key to it all! Wonderful, thank you.
ReplyDeleteYes, what you say about the great themes in such stories is why I love mythology, and certainly the ones to be found in the Norse Edda and the Finnish Kalevala. Which reminds me that I wrote a post for this blog about the Daughter of the Air, a story from the Kalevala (in 2015). All these stories are wise teachers, as is this story of Idun which is very much about restoring the lost balance to Asgard: something we still could learn from in our own out-of-balance world! Thank you, David
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