Norse Myths : Idunn and Loki Research Spillover

I need to know about Idunn and Loki for the back story of some minor characters. And of course. Just because. Norse Mythology! Am I right?

Before I go further into what my research turned up, let me get people unfamiliar with their story up to speed. Basically, Loki tricked Idunn into being captured by a Frost giant. The gods were growing old without Idunn’s apples of youth and so made Loki go and rescue her again.

Here’s a link for the full story of the misadventure between these two Norse deities. http://www.hurstwic.org/history/articles/mythology/myths/text/idun.htm

While I’m dishing out links, here’s a link to a cute picture of the Norse pantheon.   https://www.reddit.com/r/heathenry/comments/d4mzqq/drew_my_buddies_left_to_right_tyr_thor_odin_hela/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x

Idunn and her apples are elusive. How do they or she give the gods eternal youth?

And another link to a more serious picture of the Norse pantheon and a graphic novel of the Norse myths that looks really good. It's a graphic novel of the actual material  (not the Marvel reinterpretation) This God's Asgard looks like something I'd like to read.   http://www.godsofasgard.com/about-the-book.html

Okay, on to the research. Some people seem to think Idunn is similar enough to Freyja, the goddess of love and fertility that they started as the same being. But others say Freyja is similar enough to Frigga, the Queen of the gods and goddess of marriage and the household, that they started as the same being. I think collapsing deities like that leaves us without a good basis for exploration, so I’m going to reject those collapses and act as if Idunn is her own being.

So then, Idunn is the Norse goddess of eternal youth with an eski (personal wooden box that seems to be a stand-in for a woman’s purse back in the Norse day) full of golden apples of eternal youth. I haven’t been able to find where she gets these apples, but without them, the gods grow old. I wonder if the gods ever thought of cutting out the middleman here and going to where ever she gets her apples for themselves, but that didn’t seem to occur to them.

She’s also the wife of Braggi, the god of poetry. And apparently, she’s the daughter of Ivald, the ruler of the dwarfs, the guys who make magical items for the gods. Maybe that’s her source for the apples? Though the story hinges on Loki enticing her to go look at some apples in the woods that might be nicer than hers. So maybe she takes regular apples and transforms them. The myths don’t say.

Later, Loki comes to a feast to insult each of the Asgardian deities present. He starts on Braggi and calls him a coward because didn’t want to let him into the feast after he caused the death of Baldur. Idunn tells her husband basically not to rise to Loki’s bait. Then Loki tells her that she’s slept with the murderer of her brother. But we aren’t told who either of those people are. Then Loki moves on to insult everyone else until Thor comes back a deals with him. Loki certainly made himself unpopular. Perhaps because he finds out that he was an adopted Frost giant baby and has been raised to fight Frost giants alongside the Asgardians. That would be a kick in the teeth if that was a secret that was kept from him. But Loki is definitely a complicated character.

Loki is the god of fire, but mostly he seems to be the god of stirring up trouble, even before he turned against the Asgardians. Loki will need his own blog post.

What do you think about Norse Mythology? Have any of you done deep dives into Norse Myths? Please share your opinions or anything you discovered in the comments below.