The Utility of Apples: A Norse Myth Reimagined

If you’re curious to know, immortality tastes sweet. Not a cloying sweetness, mind you. It’s fresher, light. I suppose that’s why it comes in the form of apples. And like their flavor, my apples have an uncomplicated, pleasing color. A yellow that is almost gold with a sheen that might just glimmer if you hold it in the right light. I consider them as much a treat as a necessity. The other gods seem to not care either way.

I bet if I brought them turnips of immortality, they’d have opinions then.

I walk into the High Hall with a new batch of apples in my ash-wood basket. I noticed some of the Aesir looking a little tired around their eyes. Yesterday, Thor walked by with barely a glance at me, but I noticed a few coils of white hair in his fiery beard.

Once the gods are done discussing their plans for war on the giants in the north, they mill about to chat. Quietly, I slip among them, handing out apples from my basket. Some of them give me a nod; most ignore me.

My husband, Bragi, takes my offering with a quick kiss on my forehead before turning back to talk with Odin.

As I hand Freya an apple, the goddess of beauty and magic gives me a small, appreciative smile. “My thanks, sister,” she says kindly. “You never fail to keep us from the fatigue of time.” I flush with joy at the approval.

I barely have a coherent response as I back away from her. I stumble into someone and almost topple over my basket. A pair of hands on my waist steadies me as I turn around. “Forgive me—” I start, but then I see who holds me.

“Don’t mind me,” Loki says with a wink. “Just waiting my turn for a taste.”

My flush from Freya’s gratitude flares bright red with embarrassment. I move out of his grasp. “You overstep, God of Lies.”

He clutches at his chest. “Why, sweet Idunn, I am merely referring to your apples. Like the rest of us, I feel old age tickling my spine.” His eyes are black, and they gleam at me. “What did you think I meant?”

I purse my lips at his teasing. Loki is always needling me, mocking me for my soft voice and quiet steps. The rest of the gods look at me for what I am, a gentle goddess with a purpose both essential and unspoken. When Loki looks at me, he seems to offer me a challenge.

And I am not interested.

I drop an apple in his upturned palm. I don’t know why, but I linger for just a moment to watch him take a bite with his white, sharp teeth.

“Many thanks, little goddess,” he says. He licks juice from the corner of his scarred mouth and strides away.

Several days later, I am under Yggdrasil, the world tree, refilling my basket with fresh apples. I reach up and an apple sprouts just above my fingertips. I grasp it and tug. The fruit snaps happily off its stem. I may not be a warrior like Thor or a brilliant poet like my beloved Bragi, but the world tree only ever bears fruit for me.

I try not to be smug about it.

“Greetings, lovely Idunn,” a voice says by my ear.

I yelp and a few apples tumble out of the basket. I spin around to see Loki with a smirk on his face. I quickly look away from the scars hugging the edges of his lips. They are brutal trophies from one of the many tricks he played on the gods, only to reap his own punishment. “You startled me,” I chide. I stoop to gather up the apples and dust them off gently on my skirt.

Loki waits silently, not moving a muscle to help, until I straighten and glare at him. “What are you doing here?” I demand.

He holds up his hands, palms out. “No need for such an ugly tone, sweet Idunn. I am here merely to tell you of an urgent matter.”

I frown. I am the goddess of fertility and youth. Urgency is not usually something I encounter. “What is it?”

“We have found another tree in the North. It yields apples just like your own.”

I frown harder. “What?”

“We think it’s a trick, but if they are truly apples of immortality, we must destroy it. Can you imagine if the giants got a hold of apples as glorious as yours?”

“Then destroy it. You don’t need me for that.”

“Thor already tried,” Loki whines. “It merely sprouts again after a few minutes.”

“Well, I could hardly do better than Thor.”

Loki sighs. “Never mind, pet.” He starts to walk away. “I warned Freya when she suggested I come to you—”

I perk up. “Freya mentioned me?”

He stops and faces me again. “Indeed.” He clears his throat before imitating Freya’s golden voice with uncanny precision. “‘No one understands immortality as well as our darling Idunn. She is the backbone of our power, and her wisdom is tantamount in this matter.’”

I shift on my feet, looking from Yggdrasil to my basket and finally to Loki. “She really said all that?”

He nods, his expression as grave as I have ever seen it.

“I suppose that is true.” I give a small nod. “All right, I’ll go.”

“Wonderful,” Loki says with a clap of his hands. “Follow me, then.”

Due to my particular talents, I’ve never had need of armor or weaponry. I certainly don’t require sturdy walking boots. My slippered feet encounter every jagged stone in our path, and I am loathe to see the sorry state of them after this.

We have been walking for hours, having left the gates of Asgard far behind us. There are twigs and leaves in my hair, and my white skirts are dirt-crusted. Still, I keep my complaints to myself. Freya is depending on me.

Loki stops abruptly in a small clearing. I bump into his back, but he catches me by the wrist before I tumble. “Quite the habit you’re making of that, hm?”

I snatch my wrist back. He lets me go with an inscrutable expression.

“You could outshine them all, you know,” he says somberly, and the tone is utterly foreign.

My brows shoot up. “What are you talking about?”

“None of us are immortals without those delightful fruits of yours. I meant what I said earlier: you are the backbone of the gods.”

I frown. “You told me Freya said that.”

His lips quirk. “Did I? Anyway, here we are,” he adds cheerily with a sweep of his arm.

Grateful for the distraction, I look where he gestures. “Where is the tree?”

“You can’t see it?” He points beyond the clearing. “It’s just there.”

I step in that direction, straining my eyes, but the darkness is too thick. “I don’t see anything,” I say. “Are you sure it’s here?”

There is no answer.

When I turn around, I find that I am alone. “Loki?”

From above, I hear, “Greetings, new wife.” Then there is the exhale of huge wings on my face before I feel giant talons curl around my body and snatch me into the sky.

“You should just give him an apple,” Skadi says from the other side of my cell door. “Then you could at least bargain for a proper meal or—” she sniffs in my direction “—perhaps a bath.”

I scowl at my captor’s daughter. She is leaning a shoulder against the door, arms crossed over her chest.

When I arrived a few days ago, Thiazi, no longer in his eagle form, tried to take an apple from my basket. The fruit shriveled in his massive palm. My apples have must given willingly from my own hand, a fact which Loki had apparently forgotten to tell the giant when he agreed to help with my capture.

After Thiazi stormed off with a curse, Skadi appeared with a tireless supply of insults. She has since been insufferably consistent, appearing every morning.

“These apples belong to the Aesir,” I snap at her, my voice rusty. “Your brute of a father doesn’t deserve immortality.”

Skadi snorts. “And you do? What about that tricky bastard who helped my father trap you here? Or perhaps Thor? He seems to truly value lives. Thor the Merciful, we should call him. And the lovely Freya, whose beauty is only rivaled by her own greed for magic? Surely, we should keep her around forever.”

“Stop it.” I bury my head in my arms as I curl up in the corner.

I can hear the sneer in her voice. “For all your softness and sweet eyes, you are just as responsible for all the death and destruction plaguing my people as they are.”

I clamp my hands over my ears. No, I tell myself. I am a goddess of fertility and youth. I do my duty to the gods. I have a purpose, and it is noble.

But the memory of Loki’s words makes something in me wither as quickly as my apple in Thiazi’s hand.

You are the backbone of the immortals.

Thiazi attempts to woo me for weeks. He brings me gifts. He reads to me. He begs with a voice sweet and contrite.

When that doesn’t work, he threatens me, hands gripping the bars as if he could grind them to dust. He hurls insults from the other side of my cell door. He tells me he will kill all the Aesir and make me eat their flesh.

I sit in my growing filth and ignore him. I tell myself I will endure.

And then one day, he opens the cell door.

Every morning, my bones re-fuse and my open wounds heal. Skadi waits for me to wake up before throwing mold-spotted bread at me. Sometimes, she brings me water. Most times, she doesn’t.

“You know,” Skadi says morning. “I hear that when they discovered you missing—many, many days later, by the way, good friends you have there—each god gathered at Yggdrasil.” She bites into an apple, a perfectly normal one with red skin dusted prettily with yellow. “Why do you figure that is?”

I am lying on the ground on my back, my head turned to watch her warily. I feel my broken nose pop back into place and the skin slowly stitch over the bone and cartilage. “I’m sure you’ll spare me the trouble of guessing,” I rasp.

She leans forward, gleeful. “They were each reaching up to the branches. Almost like they wanted to see if the duty of safeguarding the apples could be passed on to another.”

“I don’t believe you.” I close my eyes in dismissal.

“Suit yourself,” Skadi says lightly. “But you should know that they didn’t send out search parties until after Yggdrasil rejected every single one of them.”

“Has she been violated?” I hear a someone say from far away. Dawn isn’t quite here yet and one of my eardrums is only barely intact, but I can still tell that the voice is female and lovely. Familiar.

“In what way, Lady Freya?” Thiazi asks breezily.

“In the only way that matters,” Freya retorts, the words frost-filled and calm.

“You wound me, my lady. She is my future bride. Her body is unmolested.”

Freya scoffs. “You have a strange definition of the word.”

“I merely grew curious,” Thiazi says. “You gods have such fascinating healing abilities. I thought out of you all, Idunn would be exempt of those talents. She is so fragile, as you know.” He gives a satisfied hum. “Imagine my surprise.”

I try to crack open my lids. The effort makes me dizzy. I think one of my eyes has burst.

“Give us the basket, and you can keep her.”

This new voice lashes me like a whip. The air in my lungs rattles. No. This is a dream. This is a nightmare.

“So kind, Bragi,” Thiazi says enigmatically. “But you know the girl is useless without the basket. And you know she will not give it to me. Get the All-Father to cease the attacks on my people, and then you can ask her for it yourself.” Thiazi clucks as if remembering something. “When she is whole, of course.”

“Enough,” Freya snaps. “We have seen what we came here for. Return Idunn and the basket in seven days, or Odin and the Aesir will raze your kingdom to the ground.”

My fingertips press into the dirt. They curl and stretch, curl and stretch, crawling to the door, to Bragi, to Freya. Don’t leave me...

When dawn breaks and I can use my eyes again, I see only Skadi waiting for me. We look at each other and say nothing at all.

That night, I cradle my basket in my lap as if it were my child. With broken teeth, I whisper to the apples all my rage and sorrow. I bless them with kisses from bleeding lips. I anoint them with tears.

When Thiazi opens my cell door, I beckon to him, hand outstretched.

After, I leave my cell and follow a corridor until it ends at a thick wooden door. In front of it, Skadi leans, arms crossed.

“Get out of my way,” I command.

Skadi looks me up and down, taking in the fever brightness of my eyes. “Did you kill him then?”

I lift my chin and refuse to answer.

“My father was a great king,” Skadi says, pulling the door open and stepping aside. “I will make a better queen.”

I walk into the High Hall with bloodied feet. Bragi sees me first and runs to my side. He places his hands gently on my cheeks. “My love, I was so worried.” He looks down at my basket, still full after all these months. “Let me take this.”

When he grasps the handle, I tense. His eyes fly back to me. “You look so weary, sweet wife. May I take this from you?”

Ask her for it yourself.

After another heartbeat, I nod and slip my arm from the handle.

“Idunn,” Freya says as she approaches. She grasps me fondly by the shoulders. “You are home at last.” She scans me from head toe and relaxes when she sees the basket hooked on Bragi’s arm.

“I would like to go to my room and rest for a while,” I say as other gods begin to filter into the High Hall, hearing of my return.

“Of course, my sweet,” Bragi says. “You must be exhausted.”

I look at the basket. My arms feel strange without it. When was the last time I was free of it?

“We will safeguard the apples for you, my friend,” Freya offers, her delicate fingertips brushing against the ash-wood.

I bow my head. “Thank you.” I gesture wearily to the basket. “Please, take these apples to replenish yourselves and as my apologies for the inconvenience I’ve caused.”

I don’t look back as the gods begin to crowd around my husband.

“These look different, don’t they?” someone says.

“Of course not, idiot. They’ve always been green."

That night, I return to the High Hall, bathed and dressed in clean clothes. I step over the bodies, careful not to look at the twisted limbs and foam-caked mouths, until I reach Odin’s throne.

Loki appraises me from his seat. “And here I thought I’d need a war for Ragnarok,” he says languidly. He leans forward, elbows on his thighs. “Clever, wicked Idunn.”

I stare back at him. I see in his black eyes the same challenge as always. It is still dark, still frightening, but this time I meet it with something of my own.

The scars on his mouth stretch as he smiles wide and holds out his hand.