In Norse mythology, the goddess Idun kept the apples that kept the gods young. When the giant Thjazi abducted her, the gods began to age, and it fell to Loki, who had caused the abduction, to bring her back. The story is told by Snorri Sturluson in the Prose Edda, around 1220, and already appears in Haustlöng, a poem by the skald Þjóðólfr of Hvinir, composed about three centuries earlier.

The ox that would not cook

According to Snorri, the gods Odin, Loki and Hœnir were travelling through empty lands when they grew hungry. They found a herd of oxen, killed one and set the meat to cook on a fire in the ground. However long they waited, the meat would not cook.

High in a tree, a great eagle said the meat would only cook if it could eat its share. The gods agreed, the meat cooked, and the eagle came down and took for itself the thighs and both shoulders of the ox. Loki grew angry, picked up a pole and struck the bird with all his might.

The pole stuck to the eagle’s body, and Loki’s hands stuck to the pole. The eagle flew low over the ground and dragged the god over rocks and trees, until he thought his arms would be torn off.

Loki’s promise

The eagle was, in fact, the giant Thjazi. He only let Loki go when Loki swore to hand over Idun and her apples. Back in Asgard, Loki arranged to meet the goddess in the forest: he said he had found apples even better than hers and that she should bring hers to compare.

Idun went. Thjazi, in eagle form, seized her and carried her to his home, in Thrymheim. Without the apples, Snorri says, the gods aged quickly, and their hair turned grey.

Loki as a falcon

The gods gathered and found out that Idun had last been seen with Loki. They threatened him with death, and he, frightened, promised to bring her back if Freya would lend him her falcon-feather cloak.

Loki flew to Thrymheim and found Idun alone: Thjazi had gone out to fish at sea. He turned the goddess into a nut, held her in his claws and took off toward Asgard.

Thjazi came back, saw that Idun was gone and went after them, again in eagle form. His wings beat so hard that the wind raised the sea. When the falcon reached the walls of Asgard, the gods had already piled wood shavings in front of the wall and lit the fire as Loki flew over.

The eagle could not stop. Thjazi’s feathers caught fire, he fell, and the gods killed him before the walls.

What the myth leaves

Idun returned, the apples returned, and the gods regained their youth. Snorri’s text does not say what the apples are made of or why only Idun keeps them, and the shorter poem Haustlöng deals with the abduction but not the final chase.

Thjazi’s death had a consequence, according to Snorri: his daughter, the giantess Skaði, went to Asgard in arms to demand compensation for her father.

Want to protect the apples? Play Idun and the apples.

Sources.

• Snorri Sturluson, *Prose Edda*, sections Gylfaginning and Skáldskaparmál (c. 1220)
• Þjóðólfr of Hvinir, poem Haustlöng (c. 900)