Note 54 — CANTO XIV. THE DELIVERANCE OF IDUNA.

Odin’s ravens; their names are Hugin (thought), and Munin (memory). Finn Magnussen thus explains the mythe of the rape of Iduna by the giant Thiasse:

Iduna represents the mild air of spring, which gives renovated life and animation to all nature. Thiasse represents winter, and the carrying off of Iduna typifies the disappearance of all genial warmth at the approach of winter; her deliverance from the prison of Thiasse denotes the return of spring; Thiasse being burnt to death in the bale-fire of Breidablik, denotes the melting and disappearance of ice by the heat of the sun at the approach of summer. The rape and the deliverance of Iduna are both effectuated through the agency of Asa-Lok, who typifies time and its vacillating nature, now impelled to good, and now to evil.