Lay of Harbard (Thorpe’s tr.).
The goddess of spring.
The physical explanation of this myth is obvious. Idun, the emblem of vegetation, is forcibly carried away in autumn, when Bragi is absent and the singing of the birds has ceased. The cold wintry wind, Thiassi, detains her in the frozen, barren north, where she cannot thrive, until Loki, the south wind, brings back the seed or the swallow, which are both precursors of the returning spring. The youth, beauty, and strength conferred by Idun are symbolical of Nature’s resurrection in spring after winter’s sleep, when color and vigor return to the earth, which has grown wrinkled and gray.
As the disappearance of Idun (vegetation) was a yearly occurrence, the old scalds were not content with this one myth, but also invented another, which, unfortunately, has come down to us only in a fragmentary and very incomplete form. According to this account, Idun was once sitting upon the branches of the sacred ash Yggdrasil, when, growing suddenly faint, she loosed her hold and dropped down on the ground beneath, to the lowest depths of Nifl-heim. There she lay, pale and motionless, gazing with fixed and horror-struck eyes upon the grewsome sights of Hel’s realm, trembling violently all the while, as if overcome by the penetrating cold.
“In the dales dwells
The prescient Dîs,
From Yggdrasil’s
Ash sunk down,
Of alfen race,
Idun by name,