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Updated: June 23, 2025
She spreads the feast, the golden Apples gleaming with unspeakable lustre in the eyes of the gods. They eat; and once more their faces glow with the beauty of immortal youth, their eyes flash with the radiance of divine power, and, while Idun stands like a star for beauty among the throng, the song of Bragi is heard once more; for poetry and immortality are wedded again.
"Oh, just outside the gates," said Loki indifferently. "If you care to see them I'll take you there. It will keep you but a moment. The tree is only a little way off." Idun was anxious to go at once. "Better take your Apples with you, to compare them with the others," said the wily god, as she prepared to go.
They tracked Loki on that fair morning when he led Idun beyond the gates; they seized him and brought him into solemn council, and when he read in their haggard faces the deadly hate which flamed in all their hearts against his treachery, his courage failed, and he promised to bring Idun back to Asgard if the goddess Freyja would lend him her falcon guise.
He has only one hand, for the Fenris-Wolf bit off his right hand. Brage, the long-bearded, is the god of eloquence and poetry. His wife is Idun, who has in her keeping the apples of which the gods eat to preserve their eternal youth. Heimdal, the white god with teeth of gold, was in the beginning of time born by nine Yotun maidens, all sisters. He is the watchman of the gods.
There were thorn-trees and brambles everywhere; but there was no fruit, neither were there any flowers, nor even green leaves. The Frost-giants had been there. Idun was about to turn her footsteps homewards, when she heard a wild shriek in the tree-tops over her head; and, before she could look up, she felt herself seized in the eagle-talons of Old Winter.
Old age, you know, spares none, not even Odin and his Asa-folk. They all grow old and gray; and, if there were no cure for age, they would become feeble, and toothless and blind, deaf, tottering, and weak-minded. The apples which Idun guarded so carefully were the priceless boon of youth.
So Loki borrowed the falcon plumage of Freyja, the queen of love, and with it flew to the country of the giants. When he reached Old Winter's castle, he found the good dame Idun shut up in the prison tower and bound with fetters of ice; but the giant himself was on the frozen sea, herding Old Hymer's cows, the cold icebergs.
In an instant the fires have been lighted, and the great flames roar to heaven. The eagle sweeps across the fiery line a second later and falls, maimed and burned to the ground; where a dozen fierce hands smite the life out of him, and the great giant Thjasse perishes among his foes. Idun resumes her natural form as Bragi rushes to meet her. The gods crowd round her.
Not long after all this happened, Loki came carelessly up to Idun as she was gathering her Apples to put them away in the beautiful carven box which held them. "Good morning, goddess," said he. "How fair and golden your Apples are! "Yes," answered Idun; "the bloom of youth keeps them always beautiful."
At last he alighted on the craggy top of an iceberg, where the storm winds shrieked, and the air was filled with driving snow. As soon as Loki could speak, he begged the cunning giant to carry him back to his comrades, -Odin and Hoenir. "On one condition only will I carry you back," answered Old Winter. "Swear to me that you will betray into my hands Dame Idun and her golden key."
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