The Norse goddess Idunn was charged with the special task of tending to the orchards of golden apples in Asgard. It was these magical fruits that gave the gods their eternal youth and vigor. When she was kidnapped by the giant Thjazi, the gods began to suffer and age. While the story of her kidnapping is the most important surviving story about Idunn, fragments of information in other sources create an intriguing mystery around her divine status.
Idunn: Goddess of Youth
Idunn is probably best described as the Norse goddess of youth and vitality. Her name in Old Norse can be interpreted as meaning “forever young” or “rejuvenator.” Rather than this being a characteristic of the goddess herself, this is a reference to the role she played in Asgard. Idunn seems to have been one of the few Norse deities with a “proper job.”
Idunn was the caretaker of the orchards of Asgard, the realm of the Aesir gods, led by Odin, in Norse mythology. She is specifically responsible for caring for and harvesting the magical golden fruits that grow there. This seems to have been more “family farm” than industrial work, as she kept the harvested fruits in a small box made of ash called the eski.
These fruits are usually described as golden apples, but they are called epli in the surviving sources, which is a general term used for fruits or nuts. Raspberries, bilberries, plums, apples, and hazelnuts were all abundant in Scandinavia in the Viking Age. Apples do seem like the most likely candidate and the one that history has adopted.
The Norse gods ate these apples on a regular basis, and they bestowed on them eternal youth and vigor.
The Kidnapping of Idunn: Meeting Thjazi
Most of what we know about the goddess Idunn comes from the story of her kidnapping. It is recorded in the book Gylfaginning in the Prose Edda, written by the Icelandic Christian historian Snorri Sturluson in the 13th century. It is worth noting that even in this story, Idunn is a minor character, and it is the male gods and giants who take on the leading roles. This reflects how Norse mythology has been preserved, exclusively by male authors.
The story begins with Odin, Hoenir (a god who helped Odin create human beings), and Loki hiking through the mountains. Loki is a giant, or Jotun, rather than a god, but due to a blood brotherhood pact that he made with Odin, he lives among the gods of Asgard as their friend and ally.
As the three travel, they come across a herd of oxen and decide to kill and eat one. However, when they try to light a fire to cook the meat, they find that they are unable to light a spark. As they struggle, they hear an eagle sitting in a tree above them laughing. He confesses that he is using magic to prevent them from lighting a fire and will only remove the spell if they promise him a fair portion of the food.
It is interesting that the eagle can prevent Odin from lighting a fire, but the group agrees to the eagle’s demand, and they cook their meat. When the eagle descends to get his portion, Loki tries to kill the bird by hitting it with a stick. But the eagle is too fast, and this just makes him angry. He seizes the stick in his talons, and with Loki still holding on, flies high up into the sky.
As the two soar away, Loki tries to convince the eagle to let him down. This is when the eagle reveals that he is the giant Thjazi, shapeshifted into eagle form. He says that he will only let Loki down in return for his help in kidnapping Idunn and seizing her box of apples. Loki agrees.
The Kidnapping of Idunn: Taking the Goddess
Back in Asgard after his adventure, Loki approaches Idunn and tells her that in the dark forest, there is a tree with fruit even more amazing than her golden apples. Intrigued, Idunn agrees to go with Loki and brings her box to collect a sample. Once there, Thjazi lies in wait, again in eagle form. He seizes Idunn and flies off with her to his stronghold in Jotunheim, the land of the giants.
It seems to be a while before Idunn is missed, how long is unclear, but eventually, the gods start to notice gray hairs sprouting and joints creaking from not eating the golden apples. When it is discovered that the last person seen with Idunn was Loki, he is immediately suspected. When the gods question him, Loki reveals what happened and says that he will retrieve Idunn.
For this purpose, Loki borrows the goddess Freyja’s falcon feather cloak so that he can fly. This is an interesting detail in the story since Loki is known from other stories to have been a shapeshifter, assuming the form of a mare and salmon among other things.
Regardless, he flies to Thjazi’s hall in Jotunheim where he finds Idunn. He turns Idunn into a nut so that he can carry her back to Asgard. The pair do not escape undetected, and Thjazi pursues them to the walls of the divine stronghold. Seeing the race to return, the gods create a great fire over the walls of Asgard reaching high up into the sky. They light it after Loki passes, but before Thjazi can enter. When he falls from the sky, he is killed by the gods.
This would later result in the giantess Skadi, the daughter of Thjazi, coming to Asgard to demand satisfaction for her father’s death. Like Loki, she would be adopted by the Aesir, this time by marrying the god Njord. Even though their union was short-lived because the pair were incompatible, she continued to be welcomed among the gods.
Daughter of Ivaldi
Other tidbits of information about Idunn survive sprinkled throughout other sources. She was the wife of Bragi, the bard of Asgard, who may have been a son of Odin or may have been a talented mortal skald who was deified after his death.
More tantalizing is a reference in the story of the Lokasenna, a feast during which Loki insults all the gods before fleeing Asgard due to his role in the death of Balder. Loki accuses Idunn of promiscuity and embracing the man who killed her brother. William P. Reaves has put considerable work into untangling what this might mean.
To start with, in a poem called Hrafnagaldr Odins, Idunn is described as an elf (Alfen) and called the youngest of Ivaldi’s elder children.
The most notable “sons of Ivaldi” that we meet in Norse mythology are a group of three dwarven craftsmen. After Loki removes Sif’s golden hair as a prank, he is forced to ask them to make an enchanted golden headdress for her. They also make Odin’s spear Gungnir and a ship for Freyr called Skidbladnir. This ship is big enough to carry all the gods and their steeds in full armor. But it can also fold down like a piece of paper and travel in the god’s pocket. This was a kind of “dream ship,” since the Vikings would carry their longships across land when necessary.
While we call the sons of Ivaldi dwarves, they were actually elves. In Norse myth, there are two races of elves, dark elves, who resembled dwarves in that they were master craftsmen who lived in dark places, and light elves. The light elves seem to have been considered divine ancestors. While they were not the same as the gods, they were closely related. The phrase Aesir ok Alfen, which means gods and elves, appears frequently in surviving texts as they are mentioned in the same breath. Their realm, Alfheim, was also ruled over by the god Freyr.
But the dwarves are not the only sons of Ivaldi. In the Skaldskaparmal, we meet three sons of Ivaldi, the giants Thjazi, Idi, and Gang. We know that Ivaldi had two sets of sons, an elder set and a younger set, presumably with different mothers, resulting in some being considered dark elves and others being considered giants. If Idunn is also a daughter of Ivaldi, then she is also the sister or half-sister of Thjazi. This perhaps suggests new motives for her kidnapping.
This scenario could make sense of Loki’s insult in the Lokasenna. While the gods were collectively responsible for the death of Thjazi, Loki was arguably principally responsible. Therefore, he is accusing Idunn of sleeping with him. He makes the same accusation against the goddesses Sif and Skadi, so whether it was true or not, it was a plausible thing for him to have said.
On less firm ground, Reaves suggests that Thjazi may have taken his sister Idunn as his wife. Reaves cites that these kinds of marriages were common among the Vanir gods, and Freyr and Freyja were married before they came to Asgard. From this, he suggests that Idunn is also the mother of Skadi. This is a plausible idea, but there just isn’t enough evidence to support it.
Was Idunn a Goddess?
But does this mean that Idunn wasn’t an Aesir goddess? Is she not an elf or possibly half-giant? It probably doesn’t matter. Time and again, we see that the Vikings did not draw clear lines between the different supernatural beings in their mythology.
Odin himself was the son of the god Borr and the giantess Bestla, but he was considered a pure Aesir god. He then fathered Thor on the giantess Jord, making Thor, in theory, three-quarters giant, but he just isn’t treated that way. The Vanir gods Freyr, Frejya, and Njord live among the Aesir with no issue, and several female giants like Skadi marry into the Aesir clan. In short, “bloodlines” don’t seem to define what a god is.
In the surviving sources, Idunn is certainly treated as one of the most important goddesses and always included in lists of important Norse deities. She seems to have been an important Aesir goddess and part of the Norse “Pantheon” if you will.
