Norse Myths · Part 8 · Treasures and tricks · B1
Idun’s Apples
Part 8 of the Norse Myths: the gods stay young by eating the golden apples of the goddess Idun. When Loki is forced to hand her over to a giant, the gods start to grow old and grey, until Loki, flying as a falcon, brings her home as a nut. The language of change (get, grow, become, turn + adjective; getting older and older; the more…, the more…), and the language of age and youth, with Philo, Sophia, Marcos and Demetria.
The Norse gods are not immortal. They grow old, like us, except for one thing: the golden apples of the goddess Idun. Every time they feel old, they eat an apple and become young again.
Then they’d better look after those apples very carefully.
They should have, Marcos. But Loki got into trouble with a giant again, and the only way out was to hand over Idun and her apples. Tonight we watch the gods getting older and older, and learn the grammar of change.
A story about what we lose when we forget to guard what matters.
Asgard and Thrymheim, the giant Thjazi’s mountain home
Idun is the goddess who keeps the golden apples of youth in a box of ash wood. Whenever the gods begin to grow old, they eat an apple and become young again. The story of how she was stolen is told in Snorri’s Prose Edda and in a poem called Haustlöng, composed around 900 by the Norwegian poet Thjódólf, describing scenes painted on a shield, so this myth too is genuinely old.
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