Part 2 (1/2)

Now Odin had already returned and he had told the Dwellers in Asgard of Loki's attempt to cook the enchanted meat. All laughed to think that Loki had been left hungry for all 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 Dwellers in Asgard went to Iduna's garden as was their wont.

There sat Iduna in the golden house that opened on her garden. Had she been in the world of men, every one who saw her would have remembered their own innocence, seeing one who was so fair and good. She had eyes blue as the blue sky, and she smiled as if she were remembering lovely things she had seen or heard. The basket of s.h.i.+ning apples was beside her.

To each G.o.d and G.o.ddess Iduna gave a s.h.i.+ning apple. Each one ate the apple given, rejoicing to think that they would never become a day older. Then Odin, the Father of the G.o.ds, said the runes that were always said in praise of Iduna, and the Dwellers in Asgard went out of Iduna's garden, each one going to his or her own s.h.i.+ning house.

All went except Loki, the doer of good and the doer of evil. Loki sat in the garden, watching fair and simple Iduna. After a while she spoke to him and said, ”Why dost thou still stay here, wise Loki?”

”To look well on thine apples,” Loki said. ”I am wondering if the apples I saw yesterday are really as s.h.i.+ning as the apples that are in thy basket.”

”There are no apples in the world as s.h.i.+ning as mine,” said Iduna.

”The apples I saw were more s.h.i.+ning,” said Loki. ”Aye, and they smelled better, Iduna.”

Iduna was troubled at what Loki, whom she deemed so wise, told her. Her eyes filled with tears that there might be more s.h.i.+ning apples in the world than hers. ”O Loki,” she said, ”it cannot be. No apples are more s.h.i.+ning, and none smell so sweet, as the apples I pluck off the tree in my garden.”

”Go, then, and see,” said Loki. ”Just outside Asgard is the tree that has the apples I saw. Thou, Iduna, dost never leave thy garden, and so thou dost not know what grows in the world. Go outside of Asgard and see.”

”I will go, Loki,” said Iduna, the fair and simple.

Iduna went outside the wall of Asgard. She went to the place Loki had told her that the apples grew in. But as she looked this way and that way, Iduna heard a whirr of wings above her. Looking up, she saw a mighty eagle, the largest eagle that had ever appeared in the sky.

She drew back toward the gate of Asgard. Then the great eagle swooped down; Iduna felt herself lifted up, and then she was being carried away from Asgard, away, away; away over Midgard where men lived, away toward the rocks and snows of Jotunheim. Across the river that flows between the World of Men and the Realm of the Giants Iduna was borne. Then the eagle flew into a cleft in a mountain and Iduna was left in a cavernous hall lighted up by columns of fire that burst up from the earth.

The eagle loosened his grip on Iduna and she sank down on the ground of the cavern. The wings and the feathers fell from him and she saw her captor as a terrible Giant.

”Oh, why have you carried me off from Asgard and brought me to this place?” Iduna cried.

”That I might eat your s.h.i.+ning apples, Iduna,” said Thia.s.si the Giant.

”That will never be, for I will not give them to you,” said Iduna.

”Give me the apples to eat, and I shall carry you back to Asgard.”

”No, no, that cannot be. I have been trusted with the s.h.i.+ning apples that I might give them to the G.o.ds only.”

”Then I shall take the apples from you,” said Thia.s.si the Giant.

He took the basket out of her hands and opened it. But when he touched the apples they shriveled under his hands. He left them in the basket and he set the basket down, for he knew now that the apples would be no good to him unless Iduna gave them to him with her own hands.

”You must stay with me here until you give me the s.h.i.+ning apples,” he said to her.

Then was poor Iduna frightened: she was frightened of the strange cave and frightened of the fire that kept bursting up out of the earth and she was frightened of the terrible Giant. But above all she was frightened to think of the evil that would fall upon the Dwellers in Asgard if she were not there to give them the s.h.i.+ning apples to eat.

The Giant came to her again. But still Iduna would not give him the s.h.i.+ning apples. And there in the cave she stayed, the Giant troubling her every day. And she grew more and more fearful as she saw in her dreams the Dwellers in Asgard go to her garden--go there, and not being given the s.h.i.+ning apples, feel and see a change coming over themselves and over each other.

It was as Iduna saw it in her dreams. Every day the Dwellers in Asgard went to her garden--Odin and Thor, Hodur and Baldur, Tyr and Heimdall, Vidar and Vali, with Frigga, Freya, Nanna, and Sif. There was no one to pluck the apples of their tree. And a change began to come over the G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses.

They no longer walked lightly; their shoulders became bent; their eyes no longer were as bright as dewdrops. And when they looked upon one another they saw the change. Age was coming upon the Dwellers in Asgard.

They knew that the time would come when Frigga would be gray and old; when Sif's golden hair would fade; when Odin would no longer have his clear wisdom, and when Thor would not have strength enough to raise and fling his thunderbolts. And the Dwellers in Asgard were saddened by this knowledge, and it seemed to them that all brightness had gone from their s.h.i.+ning City.