Idunna (Iðunn, Idunn) Lady of Youth, the Spring Maiden, The Renewer

The Norse name Iðunn should be anglicized as Idunn. The custom of adding an -a to goddess names to make them look feminine to English readers, as in Frigga for Frigg or Eira for Eir, is not really justified linguistically. However, it’s been customary to refer to Iðunn as “Idunna” in Troth circles for so long that we’ve adopted this form for Our Troth, with apologies to Germanicists everywhere.

It’s pretty astonishing just how important Idunna has become to a major Heathen organization when so very little is actually known about her or her worship in ancient times.

The only story we know about Idunna is told by Snorri in the Prose Edda, where he retells a story in a poem called the Haustlǫng

Idunna is well known as the keeper of the apples of youth, which she feeds to the gods and goddesses to keep them youthful and strong (Gylfaginning 25). The only tale of her is recounted in the skaldic poem Haustlǫng (ca. 900), a story that Snorri fills out in Skáldskaparmál G56.

To redeem himself from the clutches of the jotun Thjazi, Loki lures her out of Asgard, and Thjazi, in eagle-shape, swoops down and snatches her.

Without her, the gods and goddesses quickly begin to fade, but they hold a council and find out that Idunna was last seen with Loki, who eventually admits the truth. Loki borrows Freyja’s falcon-coat and goes to find Idunna, changing the goddess and her apples into a nut and flying away with it. Thjazi, as an eagle, pursues him, buffeting Loki with the wind from his wings. When Loki lands in Asgard, the other gods set a fire before the walls. The fire singes Thjazi’s wings and forces him to earth, where the gods kill him.

Close Analysis of the Haustlǫng Poem

The wording of Haustlǫng tells us a great deal about this goddess. A complex multiple kenning for her is translated by Richard North as “the god’s dís of the brook of the well-spring’s corn-field” (stanza 9), meaning “the goddess of the bubbling water’s jet” or “the goddess of the eddy’s wave.” This conceals her name in a pun: she is the “eddy” (iðu) “wave (unnr) (Haustlǫng, p. xvii). Haustlǫng also calls her “the maid who knew the old-age medicine of the Æsir” (verse 9) “the well-known joy-greatening maid of the gods” (verse 10); and the “playmate (or plaything) of the Æsir” (verse 12). North comments:

Loki brings Iðunn. . . to Þjazi’s court, where she may expect to be (sexually) used by this giant as a perpetual source of wealth, on an industrial basis. . . Furthermore, given that Iðunn is pictured as both a cornfield (akr, 9/5) and a brook of running water (brunn-bekkjar, 9/5-6), it seems that she is also meant to personify the summer. The splitting of Iðunn’s name, in addition, around the words með jǫtnum (‘with the giants’) in 10/3-4 may provide an image of water cascading over rocks in the spring thaw. This season now seems to have left the gods and crossed over into the mountains from the south. . . As the sun moves north and the gods’ summer becomes winter, the giants enjoy its sunshine hidden in their bright mountain tops. . . . whereas all the kin of Ingvi-Freyr, the gods (allar áttir Ing[v]i-freys, 10/7), grow old and grey (gamlar ok hárar, 10/7-8) and begin to die. (Haustlǫng, pp. xvii-xviii)

North also observes that the language of the poem associates Idunna with female beauty; the renewal of gods, men, and all living things; and the “joy-greatening” source of love and life-force. He adds that the poem also connects Idunna with the harvest and the beasts that help to provide it (the kenning ár-Gefnar mar, “harvest-Gefn’s horse,” is used for the roasted ox that begins all the troubles, which North associates with the Winternights’ blessing); wealth and the creation of treasure (the kenning “thief of the Brísing-girdle” is applied to Loki at that moment when he is also stealing Iðunn); and sexual pleasure (in the title “playmate of the Æsir,” ása leiku—the word leikr, “play,” often has sexual connotations). He connects the lighting of a fire to ensure her safe return to the Scandinavian midsummer bonfires (Haustlǫng, pp. xxix-xxx). Idunna clearly bears the life force that keeps the worlds strong and fruitful—a trait she shares with Freyja and Sif, the other goddesses desired by jotuns.

 Her very name either means “the renewing one” or “the  active one” (de Vries, Altnordisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, p. 283). A related word, iðiagroenn (“renewed-green”), is used in Vǫluspá 59 for the newborn Earth after Ragnarok. The tale of Loki bringing her back from Thjazi’s captivity is close to the “spring goddess” model of Gerðr, Menglǫð, and Sigrdrífa: the shining hero must pass into Jotunheim, defy or slay an jotun, and cross a ring of fire to claim the maid. (Yes, Loki gets to be a “shining hero” this once!) Turville-Petre also compares Loki’s theft of Idunna to Odin’s theft of the mead of poetry (Myth and Religion, p. 187).

When Loki brings Idunna back, he transforms her into a nut before flying off. Both apples and nuts were placed in graves, such as the apples and hazelnuts in the Oseberg ship, or the crabapples and nuts in early English graves (Hagen, Anglo-Saxon Food and Drink, pp. 58, 61). Both may be signs, not merely of fruitfulness, but specifically of life springing forth again. This may be why they Richard North observes:

If winter’s end was Iðunn’s rescue, it is also possible that she was presented as returning to the divine and human world as a nut or seed for planting. Seeding-time in Iceland (sáðtíð) fell between the end of April and the end of May. (Haustlǫng, pp. xxx-xxxi)

Idunna features in a 17th Century Icelandic Poem called the Forspjallsljód

An Icelandic poem in Eddic style, Hrafnagaldr Óðinns (“Odin’s Ravens-Spell”), also called Forspjallsljóð (“Preface Song”), purports to relate another story of Idunna. The poem calls Idunna álfa ættar “of the kin of the alfs,” gives her an alternate name of Jórunn, and implies that she is the youngest daughter of Ívaldur. This Ívaldur may be the same as Ívaldi, a dwarf whose sons forged Sif ’s golden hair and other treasures for the gods (Skáldskaparmál 35). In the poem, she is said to fall from Yggdrasil and receive a wolf ’s skin to change her shape. When Odin sends Heimdallr, Loki, and Bragi to ask her about the fate of the cosmos, she is unable or unwilling to respond.

The poem is cryptic and difficult to understand, and it is probably incomplete. More to the point, it was probably written in the 17th century, over six hundred years after the conversion.

While it is not impossible that this poem might preserve old lore, it’s unclear how informative the poem really is about pre-Christian myths (Lassen, Hrafnagaldr Óðinns, pp. 9-21). Heathenry has no official canon of Scripture; individuals may decide for themselves whether or not Hrafnagaldr Óðinns sheds any light on Idunna’s nature.

There is no direct evidence that Idunna was known outside of Scandinavia, which opens the possibility that “Idunna” was an epithet for another Goddess

Apples, pears, and other fruits are often sculpted on altars to the Matronae, the female powers worshipped in the Rhineland in the Roman era. These fruits are either in baskets held by the goddesses or carved in the round on the tops of the altars, while the sides often depict stylized fruit trees or cornucopiae (“horns of plenty”) filled with fruits and grain.

Nehalennia is also sometimes carved with fruits as well. These goddesses may have been thought of as similar to Idunna in some way. Some Heathens have also felt that Idunna is the same as the English and German goddess of spring, Eostre or Ostara, or at least functionally equivalent.

Idunna’s Worship Today

Today, Idunna is called on specifically as the goddess who brings the old ways forth, growing them from the ancient seeds and rootstocks and tending them as they spring up eternally green, iðiagroenn. For this reason, she is the patron goddess of the Troth; she is honored at every Trothmoot, and her name is used for the Troth’s official magazine, Idunna. Those who like associating colors with deities might think of hers as gold, light green, and deep red: apple colors.