Iðunn: The Goddess of Apples the Gods Could Not Afford to Lose
Iðunn (Idunn) is the Norse goddess who keeps the apples the gods eat to stay young. Snorri Sturluson's Prose Edda names her as the wife of Bragi, god of poetry, and tells how Loki handed her to the giant Þjazi. Without her, the gods quickly turned gray and old, which makes her the quiet hinge of the whole pantheon.
Who Is Iðunn, the Wife of Bragi?
Snorri gives her one sentence, tucked into her husband's entry. In Gylfaginning, chapter 26 (Old Norse text), after praising Bragi's skill with words, he adds: "His wife is Idunn: she guards in her chest of ash those apples which the gods must taste whensoever they grow old; and then they all become young, and so it shall be even unto the Weird of the Gods." That is Arthur Brodeur's 1916 translation.
Then comes the best moment. Gangleri remarks that the gods trust a great deal to Iðunn's care. Hárr laughs, says it nearly went badly once, and changes the subject. Snorri saves the story for another book.
Elsewhere she sits among the Ásynjur, the goddesses of Asgard, when the gods feast Ægir in their hall, and Snorri's poetic names call her the keeper of the apples and Bragi "Iðunn's husband." For his side, see our Library entry on Bragi, the god of poetry.
The name is usually read as "the rejuvenating one" or "ever young," taking its first part as an old prefix ið-, close to "again" or "re-." That is probably right, but it fits her myth almost too neatly, and we found no etymology that settles it. Treat it as likely, not proven.
Iðunn's Apples: What the Text Literally Says
Here is the Old Norse of Gylfaginning 26: Hon varðveitir í eski sínu epli þau, er goðin skulu á bíta, þá er þau eldast. In our translation: "She keeps in her ash-wood box the apples that the gods must bite into when they grow old." The word is epli, a cousin of English "apple," and the Cleasby-Vigfússon dictionary glosses it simply as apple, with Iðunn's as its example. You will read online that epli could mean any fruit. We could not confirm that, so we will not lean on it.
The apples do not make the gods immortal. They reverse aging, again and again, but only "unto the Weird of the Gods," that is, until Ragnarök. The gods stay young. They do not stay alive.
Notice also what is missing. Snorri never calls the apples golden. There is no tree, no garden and no box that magically refills. The only golden apples in the Eddic poems belong to another story: in Skírnismál, stanza 19, Freyr's messenger offers the giantess Gerðr "eleven apples, all of gold" as a bribe. Modern retellings blend the two. The medieval texts do not.
How Þjazi Stole Iðunn, and How Loki Brought Her Back
The full story opens Skáldskaparmál (Brodeur's English translation), and Snorri puts it in Bragi's mouth: her own husband tells it to the sea-lord Ægir, a guest in Asgard, over drinks.
Odin, Loki and Hœnir kill an ox on a journey, but the meat will not cook. An eagle in the oak above admits it is the cause, demands its share, and grabs the best cuts. Loki strikes it with a pole, which sticks to the bird, and his hands stick to the pole. Dragged over stones and trees, he swears to bring Iðunn out of Asgard with her apples.
Back home, he tells her he has found apples in a wood that she will think are treasures, and asks her to bring her own to compare. The eagle, the giant Þjazi (Thjazi) in disguise, swoops down and carries her off to Þrymheimr.
The Æsir quickly grow "hoary and old." They work out that Iðunn was last seen leaving with Loki and threaten him with death or torture. He borrows Freyja's falcon shape and flies north. Þjazi has rowed out to sea, so Loki turns Iðunn into a nut, takes her in his claws, and flies for his life.
Þjazi gives chase as an eagle. The gods pile wood shavings below the wall of Asgard, and when the falcon drops inside they light them. The eagle cannot stop in time. His feathers catch fire, and the gods kill him inside the gates.
Snorri never actually says the gods became young again. He moves straight on to Þjazi's daughter, who arms herself and marches on Asgard to avenge him. Her settlement belongs to Skaði, the giantess who marched on Asgard. The point here is that the death of Iðunn's kidnapper is what brings Skaði (Skadi) into the gods' family.
What the Primary Sources Actually Say
The Iðunn material is small. Gylfaginning 26 (Prose Edda, c. 1220) is her only appearance in that book. Skáldskaparmál 1–3 and 30 (numbered as on heimskringla.no; Brodeur numbers them differently) give her seat at the gods' feast for Ægir, the theft and rescue, and her poetic names, where the apples are ellilyf ásanna, "the Æsir's cure for old age." Haustlöng, stanzas 1–13, is the oldest telling. Lokasenna 16–18 is her one speaking scene in the Poetic Edda.
Haustlöng (Old Norse text) deserves a closer look. Its poet, Þjóðólfr of Hvinir, is said to have served the Norwegian king Harald Fairhair around 900, and Snorri quotes him on this very story. The poem thanks a man named Þorleifr for a shield painted with scenes from myth, and one of them is Iðunn's abduction.
His version differs from Snorri's. Loki lures her into the giant's courts, not a wood (stanza 9). She arrives among the giants "from the south," and the poet splits her name across two lines, Ið- and -unnr, a skaldic trick (stanza 10). The gods grow gray, old and ugly, and one of them threatens Loki in direct speech (stanzas 10 and 11). Loki flies in a hawk's skin, but the surviving stanzas never mention a nut (stanza 12). The poem never uses the word "apple" either. Iðunn is simply the maiden who knew the gods' cure for old age (stanza 9). Part of the text is damaged, so something may be lost.
The poems also disagree about who killed Þjazi. Snorri gives the deed to the gods together, but in Hárbarðsljóð, stanza 19, Thor boasts: "Thjazi I felled, the giant fierce."
A poem called Hrafnagaldr Óðins (Thorpe's 1866 translation) has Iðunn sink down from the world tree and calls her of elf kin, the youngest of Ívaldi's elder children. That is where the "daughter of Ívaldi" claim on many websites comes from. But the poem survives only in paper copies from the later 1600s on, and its most recent editor treats it as post-medieval. And we know of no place name, inscription or account of worship tied to Iðunn. She lives in poetry and in Snorri's handbook, nowhere else.
Loki's Insult in Lokasenna
In Lokasenna (Bellows' 1923 translation), Loki crashes Ægir's feast and insults the guests one by one. When Bragi trades threats with him, Iðunn steps in (stanza 16): she asks Bragi to honor the bonds of kinship, since Loki is Odin's adopted son, and not to speak spitefully in Ægir's hall.
Loki turns on her at once. In Bellows' version of stanza 17: "Be silent, Ithun! thou art, I say, / Of women most lustful in love, / Since thou thy washed-bright arms didst wind / About thy brother's slayer."
Who was her brother, and who killed him? Nobody knows. No other source mentions either, as Bellows notes.
Her answer in stanza 18 is the interesting part. She will not speak spitefully to Loki, and she is calming Bragi, "who is hot with beer," because she does not want them to fight. Frigg, Freyja and Skaði all hit back when Loki turns on them. Iðunn answers by refusing the fight. It is the closest the sources come to giving her a personality.
Wearing Iðunn's Story Today
No symbol of Iðunn survives from the Viking Age. Using the apple as her emblem is a modern choice, built on Snorri's few lines about her apples, which is fine as long as nobody calls it ancient. What people wear today is the meaning: renewal, and the quiet guardian nobody notices until she is gone. If that story is yours, start with our Norse jewelry for women who carry the goddesses' stories.
FAQ: Iðunn and Her Apples
Who is Idunn in Norse mythology?
Idunn, in Old Norse Iðunn, is the goddess who keeps the apples that make the gods young again. Snorri Sturluson's Prose Edda names her as the wife of Bragi, the god of poetry. Her main myth is her abduction by the giant Thjazi, which Loki arranged and then undid by flying her home as a nut.
What do Idunn's apples do?
According to Gylfaginning 26, the gods bite into Idunn's apples whenever they grow old, and then they all become young again. The apples do not make the gods immortal. Snorri says this renewal lasts only until Ragnarök, and many of the gods still die in that final battle.
Were Idunn's apples golden?
Not in the medieval sources. Snorri says only that she keeps the apples in a box of ash wood, and the poem Haustlöng never mentions apples at all. The golden apples of the Eddas are the eleven that Skírnir offers the giantess Gerðr in Skírnismál, a different story that modern retellings often merge with Idunn's.
How was Idunn kidnapped?
Loki, trapped by the giant Thjazi in eagle form, swore to bring Idunn out of Asgard. He lured her into a wood with a story about some remarkable apples, and Thjazi carried her off. When the gods grew old, Loki borrowed Freyja's falcon shape, turned Idunn into a nut, and flew her home while the gods burned the pursuing eagle.
What does the name Idunn mean?
The name is usually read as "the rejuvenating one" or "ever young," taking its first part as an old prefix meaning something like "again." That reading matches her role so well that it is widely repeated, but the etymology is not certain. It is best treated as the likely meaning, not a proven one.
Was Idunn worshipped by the Vikings?
We have no evidence that she was. No place names, inscriptions or accounts of worship are tied to Idunn. She appears in the skaldic poem Haustlöng, in Lokasenna, and in Snorri Sturluson's Prose Edda, all of which treat her as a figure of myth and poetry rather than of cult.
Sources
- Snorri Sturluson, Prose Edda: Gylfaginning 26; Skáldskaparmál 1–3 and 30 (Old Norse at heimskringla.no; Brodeur translation, 1916).
- Þjóðólfr of Hvinir, Haustlöng, stanzas 1–13 (Finnur Jónsson's text).
- Poetic Edda: Lokasenna 16–18, Hárbarðsljóð 19, Skírnismál 19 (Bellows translation, 1923).
- Hrafnagaldr Óðins, stanza 6 (Thorpe translation, 1866), a post-medieval poem.