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equivalent Saturn, presided over the transition between endings and beginnings (which was why the Roman festival of the winter solstice, marking the transition from the old year to the new, was the Saturnalia). Surtur plays a similar role in Norse/Teutonic mythology (hence, as we shall see, the crucial part he plays in the events of RagnaroklGottderdammerung, the end of the world). Thus Saturday marks the moment when the old week ends, followed by the resurrection of the `Sun' to mark the first day of the next (in Russian, Sunday is still named `resurrection day'). This also links up with the Christian `Easter, the festival marking Christ's resurrection, named after the place where the sun rises: in the east, from the original Sanskrit usra, `the dawn' (from which the Greeks also derived their word for `dawn, `eos', beloved by Homer). Thus Christ, like the Sun, is the source of light which dies and is then resurrected, on Easter Sunday morning (just as Christian churches are aligned east-west, so that the sun rises over the altar).

20. This belief in the `transmigration of souls' through a series of bodily incarnations was also shared by some in the west, most notably by the followers of Pythagoras, as Shakespeare quizzically reflected in Twelfth Night:

`Clown: What is the opinion of Pythagoras concerning wild fowl?

Malvolio: That the soul of our grandam might haply inhabit a bird.

Clown: What thinkest thou of his opinion?

Malvolio: I think nobly of the soul, and no way approve his opinion.'

21. There is a semi-archetypal influence at work behind the desire to believe that a great national leader may one day return to assist his country in its hour of need. Such beliefs are not uncommon in history: Frederick Barbarossa, James IV of Scotland, Sebastian of Portugal, Alexander I of Russia and Francis Drake were among those who inspired such legends.

22. Averroes (1126-98), the Moslem scholar and philosopher, born in Spain, was exceptional among Western thinkers in believing that there was no such thing as personal immortality for individual souls, but that each human being merges back after death into an eternal whole.

23. Donne, An Anatomy of the World, First Anniversary (1611).

24. As William Hazlitt put it: the striking peculiarity of Shakespeare's mind was its generic quality, its power of communication with all other minds, so that it contained a universe of thought and feeling within itself, and had no particular bias or exclusive excellence more than another. He was just like any other man, but that he was like all other men. He was the least of an egotist that it was possible to be.' (On Shakespeare and Ben Jonson).

25. Recorded by Bettina von Brentano in a letter to Goethe, May 1810.

27. Histoire ou Contes du Temps Passe (1695).

26. As Tolstoy wrote in What Is Art?, `Only two kinds of art can be considered good art in our time ... first, art transmitting feelings from a religious perception of man's position in the world, in relation to God and his neighbour ... secondly, art transmitting the simplest feelings of common life, such as are accessible to all men throughout the world: the art of common life, the art of the people, universal art.'

28. A fascinating historical account of this triumph of ego-consciousness is given in The Measure of All Things by Ken Alder (2002). He goes on to describe how in 1801 Napoleon decreed that exclusive use of the metric system should be compulsory throughout France. But this led to such chaos and proved so unpopular that in 1812 he allowed the French to return to their traditional measures. The French government only reimposed the metric system in 1840.

29. Preface to second edition of Lyrical Ballads (1800).

1. One episode in which Loki plays his familiar role is that from the Prose Edda centred on a ring stolen by Loki from Andvari the dwarf. As usual, Loki has got the gods into trouble, by killing one of the sons of Hreidmar, and steals the ring to buy off Hreidmar's wrath. But Andvari places a curse on anyone who owns the ring, and this leads to one of Hreidmar's