Iduna's Star: The Golden Apple
Iduna the Divine Gardener keeps an orchard of sacred fruit, including trees which grow the apples of immortality which supposedly keep the Aesir alive and well. She is usually shown either as a delicate maiden or a robust farm girl digging in the dirt. Either way, she has the gift of making things grow. However, her golden apples were much sought after and often stolen. Apparently they did not work unless Iduna herself gave them to the recipient—some life-and-health magic of hers—and thus various attempts were made to steal Iduna herself. At least one was successful and she was imprisoned in a giant’s cave. Loki had to borrow Freya’s falcon cloak and sneak in to get her, turning her into a nut to carry her back to Asgard.
The fixed star Mirach used to be the alpha star in the constellation of Andromeda, the Chained Maiden, until the star Alpheratz was stolen from the Great Square to be added to the constellation. The meaning of the word “Mirach” is muddled; it might mean “girdle”, “loins”, “or “womanly”. It was also called Ventrale, “belly”. These are all linked, directly or vaguely, to fertility. Bernadette Brady says that Mirach is a star of receptive and productive fertility—the young woman open to being fertilized, or the mind opened to being fertilized with ideas. Medieval astrologers said that it was of the nature of Venus, and indicated beauty, devotion, kindness, forgiveness, and good fortune in marriage. Those with Mirach strong in their charts are said to have a careful, gentle, finely-tuned approach—the way one works with delicate living things. This is the star of the feminine gardener … and the captured maiden.
This star blesses people with happy marriages, and certainly Iduna has one of the few of those—her marriage to Bragi the skald was always said to be quite fortunate. Bragi was no warrior, but won Iduna with words and songs of love—certainly a Venusian story. He is the deity who is “welcome in any home”, and she is the gentle giver of the sacred apples of immortality. However, this meant that when she was captured, Bragi had to depend on Loki to rescue his captured maiden.
There is a side of the constellation of Andromeda which is entirely different from the positive concepts above: that the gentler you are, the more likely you are to be mistreated. Iduna was captured precisely because she was valuable, and her lack of warriorship meant that she had to be rescued. Mirach’s dark side is the potential for others to attempt to possess the individual, perhaps without their consent. Iduna’s creativity can be too much for some unscrupulous folk to resist—they want to put out their hand and take the apple without payment. Mirach is Iduna’s golden apple—grown from love and scrupulous care, giving health and longevity, but irresistible to the black heart.