LADON, IDUNN, EDEN

Thrice have I heard the story of the golden apples of life and youth, guarded by a serpent and a maiden in an ever-verdant garden. Three times, did I hear the tale as a child: The first, from the sacred pages of the Eastern lands. The second, from the Southern epics where gods make love to all their creations. The third, from the dear Northern sagas, in harsher yet more pristine attire.

Not until the present had I realized some kind of serendipity, that connects all three stories together, perchance as a campfire yarn of the newcomers from the grassy steppes (the first humans to reach Europe, coming over from Central Asia), perchance as a blurred and darkened reminder of the existence of a collective unconscious (a vast ocean or supergalaxy of myths, according to one Herr Jung).

For the garden in the Eastern tale is called Eden...

...the serpent in the Southern tale is called Ladon...

...and the maiden in the Northern tale is called Idunn.

Is there any connection? Is it, at heart, the same myth in three different disguises?