Odin’s Ravens’ Song (Thorpe’s tr.).
Seeing that she did not rouse herself and return, Odin finally bade Bragi, Heimdall, and another of the gods go in search of her, giving them a white wolfskin to envelop her in, so that she should not suffer from the cold, and bidding them make every effort to rouse her from her stupor.
“A wolf’s skin they gave her,
In which herself she clad.”
Odin’s Ravens’ Song (Thorpe’s tr.).
But although Idun passively allowed them to wrap her up in the warm wolfskin, she persistently refused to speak or move, and the gods sadly suspected she foresaw great ills, for the tears continually rolled down her pallid cheeks. Bragi, seeing her unhappiness, bade the other gods return to Asgard without him, vowing that he would remain beside her until she was ready to leave Hel’s dismal realm. But the sight of her woe oppressed him so sorely that he had no heart for his usual merry songs, and the strings of his harp remained entirely mute.
“That voice-like zephyr o’er flow’r meads creeping,
Like Bragi’s music his harp strings sweeping.”
Viking Tales of the North (R. B. Anderson).
In this myth Idun’s fall from Yggdrasil is symbolical of the autumnal falling of the leaves, which lie limp and helpless on the cold bare ground until they are hidden from sight under the snow, represented by the wolfskin, which Odin, the sky, sends down to keep them warm; and the cessation of the birds’ songs is further typified by Bragi’s silent harp.