into the air and quivered, and turned, and fell back, making a hundred
little flashing circles in the river; and then she grew tired, for once,
of the light and the noise, and wandered down to a still place, where the
river was shaded by low bushes on each side, and reflected clearly the
blue sky overhead.
Iduna sat down and looked into the deep water. Besides her own fair face
there were little, wandering, white clouds to be seen reflected there.
She counted them as they sailed past. At length a strange form was
reflected up to her from the water—large, dark, lowering wings, pointed
claws, a head with fierce eyes—looking at her.
Iduna started and raised her head. It was above as well as below; the
same wings—the same eyes—the same head—looking down from the blue sky, as
well as up from the water. Such a sight had never been seen near Asgard
before; and, while Iduna looked, the thing waved its wings, and went up,
up, up, till it lessened to a dark spot in the clouds, and on the river.
It was no longer terrible to look at; but, as it shook its wings a number
of little black feathers fell from them, and flew down toward the grove.
As they neared the trees, they no longer looked like feathers—each had
two independent wings and a head of its own; they were, in fact, a swarm
of Nervous Apprehensions; troublesome little insects enough, and well
known elsewhere, but which now, for the first time, found their way into
the grove.
Iduna ran away from them; she shook them off; she fought quite bravely
against them; but they are by no means easy to get rid of; and when, at
last, one crept within the folds of her dress, and twisted itself down
to her heart, a new, strange feeling thrilled there—a feeling never yet
known to any dweller in Asgard. Iduna did not know what to make of it.
II. THE WINGED-GIANT
In the meantime Odin, Loki, and Hœnir proceeded on their journey. They
were not bound on any particular quest. They strayed hither and thither
that Odin might see that things were going on well in the world, and his
subjects comporting themselves in a becoming manner. Every now and then
they halted while Odin inspected the thatching of a barn, or stood at the
smithy to see how the smith wielded his hammer, or in a furrow to observe
if the ploughman guided his plough-share evenly through the soil. “Well
done,” he said if the workman was working with all his might; and he
turned away, leaving something behind him, a straw in the barn, a piece
of old iron at the forge-door, a grain in the furrow—nothing to look at;
but ever after the barn was always full, the forge-fire never went out,
the field yielded bountifully.
Toward noon the Æsir reached a shady valley, and, feeling tired and
hungry, Odin proposed to sit down under a tree, and while he rested and
studied a book of runes which he had with him, he requested Loki and
Hœnir to prepare some dinner.
“I will undertake the meat and the fire,” said Hœnir; “you, Loki, will
like nothing better than foraging about for what good things you can pick
up.”
“That is precisely what I mean to do,” said Loki. “There is a farmhouse
near here, from which I can perceive a savory smell. It will be strange,
with my cunning, if I do not contrive to have the best of all the dishes
under this tree before your fire is burnt up.”
As Loki spoke he turned a stone in his hand, and immediately he assumed
the shape of a large black cat.
In this form he stole in at the kitchen-window of a farmhouse, where a
busy housewife was intent on taking pies and cakes from a deep oven, and
ranging them on a dresser under the window. Loki watched his opportunity,
and whenever the mistress’s back was turned he whisked a cake or a pie
out of the window.
“One, two, three. Why, there are fewer every time I bring a fresh one
from the oven!” cried the bewildered housewife. “It’s that thieving cat.
I see the end of her tail on the window-sill.” Out of the window leant
the housewife to throw a stone at the cat, but she could see nothing but
a thin cow trespassing in her garden; and when she ran out with a stick
to drive away the cow, it, too, had vanished, and an old raven, with she
young ones, was flying over the garden-hedge.
The raven was Loki, the little ones were the pies; and when he reached
the valley, and changed himself and them into their proper shapes, he had
a hearty laugh at his own cleverness, and at the old woman’s dismay.
“Well done, Loki, king of thieves,” said a chorus of foxes, who peeped
out of their holes to see the only one of the Æsir whose conduct they
could appreciate; but Odin, when he heard of it, was very far from
thinking it well done. He was extremely displeased with Loki for having
disgraced himself by such mean tricks.
“It is true,” he said, “that my subjects may well be glad to furnish
me with all I require, but it should be done knowingly. Return to the
farmhouse, and place these three black stones on the table from whence
you stole the provisions.”
Loki—unwilling as he was to do anything he believed likely to bring good
to others—was obliged to obey. He made himself into the shape of a white
owl, flew once more through the window, and dropped the stones out of his
beak; they sank deep into the table, and looked like three black stains
on the white deal-board.
From that time the housewife led an easy life; there was no need for her
to grind corn, or mix dough, or prepare meat. Let her enter her kitchen
at what time of day she would, stores of provisions stood smoking hot on
the table. She kept her own counsel about it, and enjoyed the reputation
of being the most economical housekeeper in the whole country-side; but
one thing disturbed her mind, and prevented her thoroughly enjoying the
envy and wonder of the neighboring wives. All the rubbing, and brushing,
and cleaning in the world would not remove the three black stains from
her kitchen table, and as she had no cooking to do, she spent the greater
part of her time in looking at them.
“If they were but gone,” she said, a hundred times every day, “I should
be content; but how is one to enjoy one’s life when one cannot rub the
stains off one’s own table?”
Perhaps Loki foresaw how the good wife would use her gift; for he came
back from the farmhouse in the best spirits. “We will now, with Father
Odin’s permission, sit down to dinner,” he said; “for surely, brother
Hœnir, while I have been making so many journeys to and fro, you have
been doing something with that fire which I see blazing so fiercely, and
with that old iron pot smoking over it.”
“The meat will be by this time ready, no doubt,” said Hœnir. “I killed a
wild ox while you were away, and part of it has been now for some time
stewing in the pot.”
The Æsir now seated themselves near the fire, and Hœnir lifted up the lid
of the pot. A thick steam rose up from it; but when he took out the meat
it was as red and uncooked as when he first put it into the pot.
“Patience,” said Hœnir; and Odin again took out his book of runes.
Another hour passed, and Hœnir again took off the lid, and looked at the
meat; but it was in precisely the same state as before. This happened
several times, and even the cunning Loki was puzzled; when, suddenly, a
strange noise was heard coming from a tree near, and, looking up, they
saw an enormous human-headed eagle seated on one of the branches, and
looking at them with two fierce eyes. While they looked it spoke.
“Give me my share of the feast,” it said, “and the meat shall presently
be done.”
“Come down and take it—it lies before you,” said Loki, while Odin looked
on with thoughtful eyes; for he saw plainly that it was no mortal bird
who had the boldness to claim a share in the Æsir’s food.
Undaunted by Odin’s majestic looks, the eagle flew down, and, seizing a
large piece of meat, was going to fly away with it, when Loki, thinking
he had now got the bird in his power, took up a stick that lay near, and
struck a hard blow on the eagle’s back. The stick made a ringing sound as
it fell; but when Loki tried to draw it back, he found that it stuck with
extraordinary force to the eagle’s back; neither could he withdraw his
own hands from the other end.
Something like a laugh came from the creature’s half-human,
half-bird-like mouth; and then it spread its dark wings and rose up into
the air, dragging Loki after.
“It is as I thought,” said Odin, as he saw the eagle’s enormous bulk
brought out against the sky; “it is Thiassi, the strongest giant in
Jötunheim, who has presumed to show himself in our presence. Loki has
only received the reward of his treachery, and it would ill-become us to
interfere in his behalf; but, as the monster is near, it will be well for
us to return to Asgard, lest any misfortune should befall the city in our
absence.”
While Odin spoke, the winged creature had risen up so high as to be
invisible even to the eyes of the Æsir; and, during their return to
Asgard, he did not again appear before them; but, as they approached the
gates of the city, they were surprised to see Loki coming to meet them.
He had a crest-fallen and bewildered look; and when they questioned him
as to what had happened to him since they parted in such a strange way,
he declared himself to be quite unable to give any further account of his
adventures than that he had been carried rapidly through the air by the
giant, and, at last, thrown down from a great height near the place where
the Æsir met him.
Odin looked steadfastly at him as he spoke, but he forbore to question
him further: for he knew well that there was no hope of hearing the truth
from Loki, and he kept within his own mind the conviction he felt that
some disastrous result must follow a meeting between two such evil-doers
as Loki and the giant Thiassi.
That evening, when the Æsir were all feasting and telling stories to each
other in the great hall of Valhalla, Loki stole out from Gladsheim, and
went alone to visit Iduna in her grove. It was a still, bright evening.
The leaves of the trees moved softly up and down, whispering sweet words
to each other; the flowers, with half-shut eyes, nodded sleepily to their
own reflections in the water, and Iduna sat by the fountain, with her
head resting in one hand, thinking of pleasant things.
“It is all very well,” thought Loki; “but I am not the happier because
people can here live such pleasant lives. It does not do me any good, or
cure the pain I have had so long in my heart.”
Loki’s long shadow—for the sun was setting—fell on the water as he
approached, and made Iduna start. She remembered the sight that had
disturbed her so much in the morning; but when she saw only Loki, she
looked up and smiled kindly; for he had often accompanied the other Æsir
in their visits to her grove.
“I am wearied with a long journey,” said Loki abruptly, “and I would eat
one of your apples to refresh me after my fatigue.” The casket stood by
Iduna’s side, and she immediately put in her hand and gave Loki an apple.
To her surprise, instead of thanking her warmly, or beginning to eat it,
he turned it round and round in his hand with a contemptuous air.
“It is true then,” he said, after looking intently at the apple for
some time, “your apples are but small and withered in comparison. I was
unwilling to believe it at first, but now I can doubt no longer.”
“Small and withered!” said Iduna, rising hastily. “Nay, Asa Odin himself,
who has traversed the whole world, assures me that he has never seen any
to be compared to them.”
“That will never be said again,” returned Loki, “for this very afternoon
I have discovered a tree, in a grove not far from Asgard, on which grow
apples so beautiful that no one who has seen them will ever care again
for yours.”
“I do not wish to see or hear of them,” said Iduna, trying to turn away
with an indifferent air; but Loki followed her, and continued to speak
more and more strongly of the beauty of this new fruit, hinting that
Iduna would be sorry that she had refused to listen when she found all
her guests deserting her for the new grove, and when even Bragi began to
think lightly of her and of her gifts. At this Iduna sighed, and Loki
came up close to her, and whispered in her ear:
“It is but a short way from Asgard, and the sun has not yet set. Come out
with me, and, before any one else has seen the apples, you shall gather
them, and put them in your casket, and no woman shall ever have it in her
power to boast that she can feast the Æsir more sumptuously than Iduna.”
Now Iduna had often been cautioned by her husband never to let anything
tempt her to leave the grove, and she had always been so happy here, that
she thought there was no use in his telling her the same thing so often
over; but now her mind was so full of the wonderfully beautiful fruit,
and she felt such a burning wish to get it for herself, that she quite
forgot her husband’s commands.
“It is only a little way,” she said to herself; “there can be no harm in
going out just this once;” and, as Loki went on urging her, she took up
her basket from the ground hastily, and begged him to show her the way
to this other grove. Loki walked very quickly, and Iduna had not time to
collect her thoughts before she found herself at the entrance of Always
Young. At the gate she would gladly have stopped a minute to take breath;
but Loki took hold of her hand, and forced her to pass through, though,
at the very moment of passing, she half drew back; for it seemed to her
as if all the trees in the grove suddenly called out in alarm, “Come
back, come back, oh, come back, Iduna!” She half drew back her hand,
but it was too late; the gate fell behind her, and she and Loki stood
together without the grove.
The trees rose up between them and the setting sun, and cast a deep
shadow on the place where they stood; a cold, night air blew on Iduna’s
cheek, and made her shiver.
“Let us hasten on,” she said to Loki; “let us hasten on, and soon come
back again.”
But Loki was not looking on, he was looking up. Iduna raised her eyes
in the direction of his, and her heart died within her; for there, high
up over her head, just as she had seen it in the morning, hung the
lowering, dark wings—the sharp talons—the fierce head, looking at her.
For one moment it stood still above her head, and then lower, lower,
lower, the huge shadow fell; and, before Iduna found breath to speak, the
dark wings were folded round her, and she was borne high up in the air,
northwards, towards the gray mist that hangs over Jötunheim. Loki watched
till she was out of sight, and then returned to Asgard. The presence of
the giant was no wonder to him; for he had, in truth, purchased his own
release by promising to deliver up Iduna and her casket into his power;
but, as he returned alone through the grove, a foreboding fear pressed on
his mind.
“If it should be true,” he thought, “that Iduna’s apples have the
wonderful power Odin attributes to them! if I among the rest should
suffer from the loss!”
Occupied with these thoughts, he passed quickly among the trees, keeping
his eyes resolutely fixed on the ground. He dare not trust himself to
look around; for once, when he had raised his head, he fancied that,
gliding through the brushwood, he had seen the dark robes and pale face
of his daughter Hela.
III. HELA
When it was known that Iduna had disappeared from her grove, there
were many sorrowful faces in Asgard, and anxious voices were heard
inquiring for her. Loki walked about with as grave a face, mid asked as
many questions, as any one else; but he had a secret fear that became
stronger every day, that now, at last, the consequence of his evil ways
would find him out.
Days passed on, and the looks of care, instead of wearing away, deepened
on the faces of the Æsir.
They met, and looked at each other, and turned away sighing; each saw
that some strange change was creeping over all the others, and none liked
to be the first to speak of it. It came on very gradually—a little change
every day, and no day ever passing without the change. The leaves of the
trees in Iduna’s grove deepened in color. They first became a somber
green, then a glowing red, and, at last, a pale brown; and when the brisk
winds came and blew them about, they moved every day more languidly.
“Let us alone,” they said at length. “We are tired, tired, tired.”
The winds, surprised, carried the new sound to Gladsheim, and whispered
it all round the banquet-hall where the Æsir sat, and then they rushed
back again, and blew all through the grove.
“We are tired,” said the leaves again; “we are tired, we are old; we are
going to die;” and at the word they broke from the trees one by one, and
fluttered to the ground, glad to rest anywhere; and the winds, having
nothing else to do, went back to Gladsheim with the last strange word
they had learned.
The Æsir were all assembled in Valhalla; but there were no stories told,
and no songs sung. No one spoke much but Loki, and he was that day in a
talking humor. He moved from one to another, whispering an unwelcome word
in every ear.
“Have you noticed your mother Frigga?” he said to Baldur. “Do you see how
white her hair is growing, and what a number of deep lines are printed on
her face?”
Then he turned to Frey. “Look at your sister Freya and your friend
Baldur,” he said, “as they sit opposite to us. What a change has come
over them lately! Who would think that that pale man and that faded woman
were Baldur the beautiful and Freya the fair?”
“You are tired—you are old—you are going to die,” moaned the winds,
wandering all round the great halls, and coming in and out of the hundred
doorways, and all the Æsir looked up at the sad sound. Then they saw,
for the first time, that a new guest had seated herself that day at the
table of the Æsir. There could be no question of her fitness on the
score of royalty, for a crown rested on her brow, and in her hand she
held a scepter; but the fingers that grasped the scepter were white and
fleshless, and under the crown looked the threatening face of Hela, half
corpse, half queen.
A great fear fell on all the Æsir as they looked, and only Odin found
voice to speak to her. “Dreadful daughter of Loki!” he said, “by what
warrant do you dare to leave the kingdom where I permit you to reign, and
come to take your place among the Æsir, who are no mates for such as you?”
Then Hela raised her bony finger, and pointed, one by one, to the guests
that sat round. “White hair,” she said, “wrinkled faces, weary limbs,
dull eyes—these are the warrants which have summoned me from the land of
shadows to sit among the Æsir. I have come to claim you, by these signs,
as my future guests, and to tell you that I am preparing a place for you
in my kingdom.”
At every word she spoke a gust of icy wind came from her mouth and froze
the blood in the listeners’ veins. If she had stayed a moment longer they
would have stiffened into stone; but when she had spoken thus, she rose
and left the hall, and the sighing winds went out with her.
Then, after a long silence, Bragi stood up and spoke. “Æsir,” he said,
“we are to blame. It is now many months since Iduna was carried away from
us; we have mourned for her, but we have not yet avenged her loss. Since
she left us a strange weariness and despair have come over us, and we sit
looking on each other as if we had ceased to be warriors and Æsir. It is
plain that, unless Iduna returns, we are lost. Let two of us journey to
the Urda fount, which we have so long neglected to visit, and enquire of
her from the Norns—for they know all things—and then, when we have learnt
where she is, we will fight for her liberty, if need be, till we die; for
that will be an end more fitting for us than to sit here and wither away
under the breath of Hela.”
At these words of Bragi the Æsir felt a revival of their old strength
and courage. Odin approved of Bragi’s proposal, and decreed that he and
Baldur should undertake the journey to the dwelling-place of the Norns.
That very evening they set forth; for Hela’s visit showed them that they
had no time to lose.
It was a weary time to the dwellers in Asgard while they were absent.
Two new citizens had taken up their abode in the city, Age and Pain.
They walked the streets hand-in-hand, and there was no use in shutting
the doors against them; for however closely the entrance was barred, the
dwellers in the houses felt them as they passed.
IV. THROUGH FLOOD AND FIRE
At length, Baldur and Bragi returned with the answer of the Norns,
couched in mystic words, which Odin alone could understand. It revealed
Loki’s treacherous conduct to the Æsir, and declared that Iduna could
only be brought back by Loki, who must go in search of her, clothed in
Freya’s garments of falcon feathers.
Loki was very unwilling to venture on such a search; but Thor threatened
him with instant death if he refused to obey Odin’s commands, or failed
to bring back Iduna; and, for his own safety he was obliged to allow
Freya to fasten the falcon wings to his shoulders, and set off towards
Thiassi’s castle in Jötunheim, where he well knew that Iduna was
imprisoned.
It was called a castle; but it was, in reality, a hollow in a dark rock;
the sea broke against two sides of it; and, above, the sea-birds clamored
day and night.
There the giant had taken Iduna on the night on which she had left her
grove; and, fearing lest Odin should spy her from Air Throne, he had
shut her up in a gloomy chamber, and strictly forbidden her ever to come
out. It was hard to be shut up from the fresh air and sunshine; and yet,
perhaps, it was safer for Iduna than if she had been allowed to wander
about Jötunheim and see the monstrous sights that would have met her
there.
She saw nothing but Thiassi himself and his servants, whom he had
commanded to attend upon her; and they, being curious to see a stranger
from a distant land, came in and out many times every day.
They were fair, Iduna saw—fair and smiling; and, at first, it relieved
her to see such pleasant faces round her, when she had expected something
horrible.
“Pity me!” she used to say to them; “pity me! I have been torn away from
my home and my husband, and I see no hope of ever getting back.” And she
looked earnestly at them; but their pleasant faces never changed, and
there was always—however bitterly Iduna might be weeping—the same smile
on their lips.
At length Iduna, looking more narrowly at them, saw, when they turned
their backs to her, that they were hollow behind; they were, in truth,
Ellewomen, who have no hearts, and can never pity any one.
After Iduna saw this she looked no more at their smiling faces, but
turned away her head and wept silently. It is very sad to live among
Ellewomen when one is in trouble.
Every day the giant came and thundered at Iduna’s door. “Have you made
up your mind yet,” he used to say, “to give me the apples? Something
dreadful will happen to you if you take much longer to think of it.”
Iduna trembled very much every day, but still she had strength to say,
“No;” for she knew that the _most_ dreadful thing would be for her to
give to a wicked giant the gifts that had been entrusted to her for the
use of the Æsir. The giant would have taken the apples by force if he
could; but, whenever he put his hand into the casket, the fruit slipped
from beneath his fingers, shrivelled into the size of a pea, and hid
itself in crevices of the casket where his great fingers could not
come—only when Iduna’s little white hand touched it, it swelled again
to its own size, and this she would never do while the giant was with
her. So the days passed on, and Iduna would have died of grief among the
smiling Ellewomen if it had not been for the moaning sound of the sea and
the wild cry of the birds; “for, however others may smile, these pity
me,” she used to say, and it was like music to her.
One morning when she knew that the giant had gone out, and when the
Ellewomen had left her alone, she stood for a long time at her window
by the sea, watching the mermaids floating up and down on the waves,
and looking at heaven with their sad blue eyes. She knew that they were
mourning because they had no souls, and she thought within herself that
even in prison it was better to belong to the Æsir than to be a mermaid
or an Ellewoman, were they ever so free or happy.
While she was still occupied with these thoughts she heard her name
spoken, and a bird with large wings flew in at the window, and,
smoothing its feathers, stood upright before her. It was Loki in Freya’s
garment of feathers, and he made her understand in a moment that he had
come to set her free, and that there was no time to lose. He told her to
conceal her casket carefully in her bosom, and then he said a few words
over her, and she found herself changed into a sparrow, with the casket
fastened among the feathers of her breast.