Duna and her apples (1)

In Asgard there was a garden, and in that garden there grew a tree, and on that tree there grew shining apples. Anyone who ate those shining apples never grew a day older, for eating them kept old age away.
The Goddess Iduna took care of the tree on which the shining apples grew. They would not grow on the tree unless she was there to look after it. No one but Iduna could pluck the shining apples. Each morning she plucked them and left them in her basket and every day the Gods and Goddesses came to her garden so that they could eat the shining apples and so stay young forever.
Iduna never left her garden. All day and every day she stayed in the garden or in her golden house beside it, and all day and every day she listened to Bragi, her husband, tell a story that never had an end. But a time came when Asgard lost Iduna and her apples, and the Gods and Goddesses felt old age approaching.
Odin, the Father of the Gods, often went into the land of men to watch over them. Once he took Loki ,the doer of good and evil, with him.

For a long time they went traveling through the world of men. At last they came near Jötunheim, the realm of the Giants.
It was a bleak and empty region. Nothing grew there, not even trees with berries. There were no birds or animals. As Odin, the Father of the Gods, and Loki, the doer of good and evil, went through this region they became hungry but in all the land around they saw nothing that they could eat.
Loki, running here and there, at last came upon a herd of wild cattle. Creeping up on them, he caught hold of a young bull and killed him.
Then he cut up the flesh into strips of meat. He lighted a fire and put the meat on spits to roast. While the meat was being cooked, Odin,  the Father of the Gods, sat thinking about the things he had seen in the world of men.
Loki made himself busy putting more and more logs on the fire. At last he called to Odin, and the Father of the Gods came and sat down near the fire to eat the meal.
But when the meat was taken off the cooking-spits and when Odin went to cut it, he found that it was still raw. He smiled at Loki for thinking the meat was cooked, and Loki, troubled that he had made a mistake, put the meat back, and put more logs upon the fire. Again Loki took the meat off the cooking-spits and called Odin to the meal.
Odin, when he took the meat that Loki brought him, found that it was as raw as if it had never been put on the fire. “Is this a trick, Loki?” he said.
Loki was so angry at the meat being uncooked that Odin saw he was playing no tricks. In his hunger he raged at the meat and he raged at the fire. Again he put the meat on the cooking-spits and put more logs on the fire. Every hour he would pick up the meat, sure that it was now cooked, and every time he took it off Odin would find that the meat was as raw as the first time they took it off the fire.
Odin realized that the meat must be under some enchantment by the Giants. He stood up and went on his way, hungry but strong. Loki, however, would not leave the meat that he had put back on the fire. He would make it be cooked, he declared, and he would not leave that place hungry.
The dawn came and he picked up the meat again. As he was lifting it off the fire he heard a whirr of wings above his head. Looking up, he saw a mighty eagle, the largest eagle that had ever appeared in the sky. The eagle circled round and round above Loki’s head. “Can’t you cook your food?” the eagle screamed to him.
“I cannot cook it,” said Loki.
“I will cook it for you, if you give me a share,” screamed the eagle. “Come, then, and cook it for me,” said Loki.
The eagle circled round until he was above the fire. Then flapping his great wings over it, he made the fire blaze. A heat that Loki had never felt before came from the burning logs. In a minute he drew the meat from the spits and found it was well cooked.
“My share, my share, give me my share,” the eagle screamed at him. He flew down, and seizing a large piece of meat instantly devoured it. He seized another piece. Piece after piece he devoured until it looked as if Loki would be left with no meat for his meal.
As the eagle seized the last piece Loki became angry indeed. Taking up the spit on which the meat had been cooked, he struck at the eagle. There was a clang as if he had struck some metal. The wood of the spit did not come away. It stuck to the chest of the eagle. But Loki did not let go of the spit. Suddenly the eagle rose up into the air. Loki, who held onto the spit that was stuck to the eagle’s chest, was carried up with him.
Before he knew what was happening Loki was high up in the air and the eagle was flying with him toward Jötunheim, the kingdom of the Giants. The eagle was screaming out, “Loki, friend Loki, I have you at last. It was you who cheated my brother of his reward for building the wall round Asgard. But, Loki, I have you at last. I, Thiassi the Giant
,have captured you, Loki. You, who are the most cunning of the inhabitants of Asgard.”
Thus the eagle screamed as he went flying with Loki toward Jötunheim, the kingdom of the Giants. They passed over the river that divides Jötunheim from Midgard, the World of Men. Loki saw a terrible place beneath him, a land of ice and rock. There were great mountains and light didn’t come from either a sun or a moon, but by columns of fire thrown up now and again through cracks in the earth or out of the peaks of the mountains.

The eagle hovered over a great iceberg. Suddenly he shook the spit from his chest and Loki fell down on the ice. The eagle screamed out to him, “You art in my power at last Loki, most cunning of all the inhabitants of Asgard.” The eagle left Loki there and flew in through a crack in the mountain.
Loki was indeed miserable on that iceberg. The cold was terrible. He could not die there, for he was one of the inhabitants of Asgard and death could not come to him that way. He might not die, but he felt bound to that iceberg with chains of cold.
The next day his captor returned, not as an eagle this time, but in his own form as, Thiassi the Giant.
“Do you want to leave this iceberg, Loki,” he said, “and return to your pleasant place in Asgard? Do you enjoy life in Asgard, even though only one half of you belongs to the Gods. Your father, Loki, was the Wind Giant.”
“If only I could leave this iceberg,” Loki said, with the tears freezing on his face.
“You can leave it when you are ready to pay a ransom to me,” said Thiassi. “You will have to get me the shining apples that Iduna keeps in her basket.”
“I cannot get Iduna’s apples for you, Thiassi,” said Loki.
“Then stay on the iceberg,” said Thiassi the Giant. He went away and left Loki there with the terrible winds pounding like the blows of a hammer.
When Thiassi returned again and spoke to him about his ransom, Loki said, “There is no way of getting the shining apples from Iduna.”
“There must be some way, cunning Loki,” said the Giant.
“Although Iduna guards the shining apples well, she is simple- minded,” said Loki. “It may be that I could get her to go outside the wall of Asgard. If she goes she will bring her shining apples with her, for she never lets them go except when she gives them to the Gods and Goddesses to eat.”
“Make it so that she will go beyond the wall of Asgard,” said the Giant. “If she goes outside of the wall I shall get the apples from her. Swear by the World-Tree that you will lure Iduna outside the wall of Asgard. Swear it, Loki, and I shall let you go.”
”I swear it by Ygdrassil, the World-Tree, that I will lure Iduna outside the wall of Asgard if you will take me off this iceberg,” said Loki.
Then Thiassi changed himself into a mighty eagle, and taking Loki in his talons, he flew with him over the stream that divides Jötunheim, the kingdom of the Giants, from Midgard, the World of Men. He left Loki on the ground of Midgard, and Loki then went on his way to Asgard.
Odin had already returned and he had told the others in Asgard of
Loki’s attempt to cook the enchanted meat. All laughed to think that Loki had been left hungry despite his cunning. Then when he came into Asgard looking so famished, they thought it was because Loki had had nothing to eat. They laughed at him more and more. But they brought him into the Feast Hall and they gave him the best of food with wine out of Odin’s wine cup. When the feast was over the inhabitants of Asgard went to Iduna’s garden as usual.
Iduna was sitting there in the golden house that opened onto her garden. Had she been in the world of men, everyone who saw her would have remembered their own innocence, seeing someone who was so fair and good. She had eyes as blue as the sky, and she smiled as if she were remembering lovely things she had seen or heard. The basket of shining apples was beside her.
See Duna and her apples (2)