Iðunn

Summary

Iðunn is a goddess of the Æsir in the Scandinavian myths, the wife of Bragi, god of poetry. In a casket she keeps the apples the gods bite when they grow old, and then they all become young again, "and so it shall be until Ragnarök". When the questioner in Gylfaginning remarks that the gods have a great deal depending on Iðunn's care and faithfulness, the one answering laughs and says that it once came close to disaster.

Bragi himself tells the story to the gods' guest Ægir. Odin, Loki and Hœnir were travelling over mountains and wastelands, and food was hard to find. They took an ox from a herd in a valley and set it in a cooking-pit, but twice it would not cook. Then they heard a voice in an oak above them: a great eagle said that he was the one keeping the meat from cooking, and that he would let it cook if they gave him his fill of it. When they agreed, he came down and took both hams and both shoulders. Loki in anger struck him with a long pole; the pole stuck to the eagle's back and Loki's hands stuck to its other end, and the eagle flew off dragging him over stones and trees until he thought his arms would be torn from their sockets. He was not let go until he swore to bring Iðunn out of Asgard with her apples. So Loki lured her into a wood, telling her he had found apples she would think precious and asking her to bring her own to compare. The giant Þjazi came in the eagle's shape, seized her and flew with her to his home, Þrymheimr.

With Iðunn gone the gods soon grew grey and old. They met and asked each other who had seen her last, and learned that she had left Asgard with Loki. Loki was seized and threatened with death or torture, and said he would fetch her if Freyja lent him the falcon-skin she owned. He flew to the land of the giants and found that Þjazi had rowed out to sea and Iðunn was alone at home, so he turned her into a nut, held her in his claws and flew off. The giant came home, missed her, put on his eagle-skin and flew after him so fast that his flight made a rushing wind. The gods saw the falcon carrying the nut and the eagle behind it, and went out to the wall of Asgard with loads of wood-shavings; when the falcon had flown in and dropped down by the wall, they set the shavings alight. The eagle could not stop, its feathers caught fire, it fell, and the gods killed Þjazi inside their gates. Then his daughter Skaði came in arms to avenge her father.

The idea the story turns on is that the gods' youth is not in their bodies but in a woman's hands and in a fruit she keeps. When she leaves their house they age within days, as people do. It is Loki who gives her away and Loki who is forced to bring her back, so the trick that took her out is the trick that returns her. And this youth has a term: the apples keep the gods until Ragnarök and do not save them from dying in the last battle. Hence the poets call the apples "the Æsir's remedy against old age", and call Iðunn "keeper of the apples" and "Þjazi's plunder".

We read the name in the Arabic tongue like this, as a reading proposed on the method, since the essay does not read her name. The skald splits her name in two in his poem, Ið- and then -unnr, so for him the first part stands on its own. In the Norse dictionary ið- is a prefix of return and repetition, as in the word for a payment given back. Drop the ʿayn, as it drops in most correspondences, set Norse ð against Arabic d, and Iðun is Arabic ʿadn. In Lane ʿadana bi-l-makān is to remain and dwell in a place, whence jannāt ʿadn, "gardens of perpetual abode". With it, in the sense of the Norse prefix, goes ʿāda yaʿūdu, to return to a state a second time. On this reading Iðunn is the one of abiding and return: through her apples the gods abide in their youth, and to them they return whenever they grow old.

Linguistic Root

Iðunn and ʿadn

Cleasby–Vigfusson records the name Iðunn without an origin. Directly before it stands the prefix ið-, "only used in compounds", answering to Old English ed- and Latin re-, back and again. From it comes iðgjöld, "recompense", the word Odin uses in Hávamál for his poor repayment of Gunnlöð, and iðjagrœna, "green again", the word Völuspá uses for the earth when it rises from the sea a second time after Ragnarök. After it the dictionary sets the prefix iður-, "frequently", comparing Latin iterum, "again", as Orel does.

Lane, under ʿ-d-n: ʿadana bihi, "he remained, stayed, dwelt, or abode, in it", said of a place or a country, "whence jannāt ʿadn, gardens of abode, or gardens of perpetual abode"; and of camels, "they kept to such a place, not quitting it". From it comes ʿaydān, tall palm-trees, "so called because of their long remaining", which the dictionary also lists under ʿ-w-d. Under ʿ-w-d: ʿāda ilayhi, "he returned to it", and ʿāda ilā kadhā, "he came to such a state, at first, and also a second time, or again".

The comparison drops the ʿayn, the letter that drops most often in the Juthoor correspondences with the European languages. Norse ð between vowels answers d in the sister languages, as this very prefix is ed- in Old English, so Arabic d meets it as English d does. N is n. One thing remains: our sources do not say whether -unn belongs to the stem or is an ending. If it is an ending, the n has no match, and only ʿ and d are left of ʿadn, which are also the letters of ʿāda.

In Hebrew, one branch of the tongue, ʿēden is "luxury, delight", and ʿĒden is the land in which the LORD's garden was planted, a name Brown–Driver–Briggs thinks the Hebrews heard as the word for delight. In that garden stood the tree of life, whose fruit would let a man live for ever. So the same letters name, in the Hebrew branch, the garden whose fruit holds lasting life.

Other readings

The essay does not read Iðunn's name. It does list ʿadana, "to dwell", among its readings of Odin, seeing in it Odin seated on his throne; it sits closer in sound here, since the ð of Odin's name is a pure Arabic dh, not a d. The first part of the name alone could also be read as ʿīd, from the same ʿāda, a thing that comes back every year. The sense of the Norse prefix, return, is what joins the three readings.

Key Mythic Narratives

Haustlöng: the story on a shield

The oldest telling of Iðunn's story is Haustlöng, "Autumn-long", by Þjóðólfr of Hvinir, court poet of King Harald Fairhair, who describes the pictures painted on a shield given him by a man named Þorleifr; Snorri says he composed it after this story. In it Loki is told to bring the maid "who knew the Æsir's remedy for old age"; then the poet says that when Iðunn was among the giants all the kin of Yngvi-Freyr grew grey and old at their assembly; then Loki flies in the hawk's feathers, and the gods raise the shavings and set them burning, and the giant is scorched.

Iðunn in Lokasenna

At Ægir's feast Iðunn asks her husband Bragi, for the sake of kinship, not to rail at Loki in Ægir's hall. Loki answers: be silent, Iðunn, you are the most man-crazed of women, since you laid your brightly washed arms around your brother's slayer. She replies: I do not rail at Loki in Ægir's hall; I am calming Bragi, who is merry with ale, and I do not want the two angry ones to fight. No other text mentions a brother of Iðunn or his killer. At the start of Skáldskaparmál Iðunn sits among the goddesses when Ægir visits the gods, and she attends his feast when they visit him.

Other apples

Skírnir offers Gerðr eleven apples, all of gold, as the price of Freyr's love, and she refuses them. The text does not say they are Iðunn's apples, and Snorri does not say Iðunn's apples are golden.

Symbolic Reading

Neither essay reads Iðunn. But the Norse rereading essay makes the gods' enemies the dangers of the environment, hunger, cold, sea and darkness, and makes the land of the giants the uninhabited country beyond the mountains. On that reading, which applies the essay's view to this story rather than quoting a reading of Iðunn, youth is carried off to the giant's mountain home and the household grows old, then a fire is lit at the wall, the giant falls and youth comes back. What the text itself holds is fruit stored in a casket and eaten when needed, food withheld from travelling gods until the eagle has its share, and a fire of wood-shavings lit at the gate.

Cross-Cultural Parallels

In the Babylonian epic Utnapishtim tells Gilgamesh of a plant under the water that restores youth; he takes it, and a snake eats it while he bathes, so he goes home without it. Both stories put youth in a plant or fruit that can be taken and lost; they part in that Gilgamesh's plant is lost for ever, while Iðunn's apples are won back by a trick. In the Greek story golden apples, given by Earth to Zeus at his marriage to Hera and guarded by a dragon and the Hesperides, are carried off by Heracles to Eurystheus, then taken back by Athena "for it was not lawful that they should be laid down anywhere": again fruit of the gods taken out of its garden and returned. In Genesis the tree of life stands in the garden of Eden, and man is kept from its fruit lest he live for ever.

Loki's trick that takes Iðunn out and brings her back is a case of the trickster, and the gods' return to youth through her apples until the end comes belongs with Ragnarök.