The bargain under the eagle
Odin, Loki, and Hœnir are traveling when they kill an ox for food. However long they cook it, the meat remains raw. An eagle above them claims responsibility and offers to let it cook if he receives a share. The travelers agree. When the eagle takes an enormous portion, Loki strikes him with a pole. The pole sticks to the bird, Loki sticks to the pole, and the eagle drags him over rough ground.
The bird is the giant Þjazi in another shape. He offers release only if Loki will bring Iðunn and her apples outside the gods’ enclosure. Loki agrees. Once home, he tells Iðunn that he has found apples she ought to compare with her own. She follows him into the wood carrying her fruit, and Þjazi carries her away to Þrymheimr.
Source: The Younger Edda / Prose Edda (1901 printing) · Skáldskaparmál, “Brage’s Talk,” chapter II, §2, “Idun and her Apples,” in Anderson
The gods grow old
Without Iðunn, the gods begin to age. Their inquiry traces her last movements to Loki, whom they threaten with death unless he repairs the loss. Freyja lends him her falcon guise, and he flies to Þjazi’s home. Finding Iðunn alone while the giant is away at sea, he changes her into a nut, grasps her with his claws, and flies back toward Asgard. The rescue is another bodily transformation, not simply the return of a basket of fruit.
Þjazi discovers what has happened and pursues in eagle form. The gods see the two birds approaching and prepare a pile of wood shavings at the boundary. Loki reaches safety with Iðunn. The gods set the shavings alight as the eagle passes; his wings catch fire, and they kill him inside their enclosure. The narrative explains why Þjazi’s death is remembered as a deed involving the gods collectively.
Source: The Younger Edda / Prose Edda (1901 printing) · Skáldskaparmál, “Brage’s Talk,” chapter II, §2 in Anderson
Restoration leaves an unpaid debt
Iðunn’s return resolves the immediate crisis of aging, but the story does not leave the gods without consequences. Þjazi’s daughter Skaði comes armed to demand compensation. Her settlement with the gods follows this episode in Snorri’s presentation, connecting restored divine youth to a new dispute over a slain parent. Loki is indispensable to the rescue because his earlier bargain created the danger.
The account gives Iðunn a practical role in divine survival. The gods need recurring renewal; their continued youth is not portrayed as an automatic condition beyond interference. At the same time, the story mostly follows the schemes of those who move her, rather than supplying her private thoughts. An original retelling can make that imbalance visible without inventing a monologue. Anderson’s “Brage’s Talk” presents these events as Bragi’s explanation to Ægir, part of a larger work teaching the narratives behind poetic expressions.
Source: The Younger Edda / Prose Edda (1901 printing) · Skáldskaparmál, “Brage’s Talk,” chapters I–III; Gylfaginning, chapter VIII, §26 in Anderson
- Period / witness
- Medieval Old Norse literature; the Poetic Edda survives chiefly in thirteenth-century copies, and Snorri’s Edda was composed around the 1220s. Mythic events have no historical date.
- Recording context
- Preserved through medieval Icelandic writing and later copies, in a Christian literary culture. Codex Regius of the Poetic Edda dates to c.1270. These recording circumstances do not locate the origin of an oral story.
A recording location is not necessarily a story’s origin. Dates of texts, copies, and translations answer different questions.
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These references support the explanation above. Rights and edition notes are recorded individually.
The Younger Edda / Prose Edda (1901 printing) ↗
Snorri Sturluson (1179–1241); translated by Rasmus B. Anderson (1846–1936) · 1901 printing of Anderson’s translation (copyright 1879); medieval work composed in Iceland around the 1220s
Edition & rights note