Heimdallr is the guardian of Bifr?st, the burning rainbow bridge that leads to the realm of the gods. He will blow the horn Gjallarhorn (not quite a trombone, but often depicted in artistic representations as almost the same size as one) to signal the beginning of Ragnar?k. He sleeps little or not at all, as he must be forever vigilant. He is responsible for the organisation of humanity into social classes. One of the epithets associated with him is “Loki’s enemy.”
Bragi Boddason was, as far as we know, a Swedish court poet, and possibly the inventor of skaldic poetry. Considering the period in which he would have lived, the early ninth century, it cannot now be known for sure whether he ever existed. If he did, he may have given his name to Bragi, the Norse god of skaldic poetry. The poem “Lokasenna” deals with Loki’s disruption of a feast of the gods that Bragi is attending. Bragi is the first of the gods to challenge Loki and the first that Loki targets in his flyting.
The huli jing, or fox spirit, is a creature of Chinese mythology. Foxes may take human form, often appearing as breathtakingly beautiful women. They may have positive, negative, or ambiguous roles in stories. Associating with a fox spirit may be dangerous or beneficial.
Māui is a Polynesian culture hero, a trickster famed for, among other things, “fishing” various islands (which ones are involved depends on who is telling the story) up to the surface of the ocean. In the Māori version of his story, it’s the North Island of New Zealand, the island upon which Freddy and Josiah find the nameless boy, that is formed from the fish Māui catches.
“Robin Goodfellow” is sometimes used as another name for the puck, a type of trickster sprite found in British folklore. The mischievous fairy Puck, also called Robin Goodfellow, has a major role in William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. A less prominent fairy in the same play is called Mustardseed.
Mika’s creation myth bears a resemblance to many creation myths from various cultures. The idea of twin culture heroes with opposing characteristics can be found in numerous mythologies, most particularly in North and South American Native creation stories.
The paths of pins and needles that Freddy encounters in the house on Grosvenor Street appear in an old French version of the story now commonly known as “Little Red Riding Hood.” Freddy’s choice of the needles path echoes the choice of the girl in the story and leads to similarly problematic results.
Freddy’s favourite reference book, Bulfinch’s Mythology, exists, and if you are interested in the mythological bits and pieces that turn up in this novel, it is a good place to start.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge was an English poet who lived in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. He is still widely known for being one of the originators of the Romantic movement in English literature. According to him, he composed the poem “Kubla Khan” in 1797 after it came to him in an opium dream. It should have been two or three hundred lines long, but he was interrupted in the composition of it by a “person on business from Porlock,” and all but the beginning of the poem was lost. He was also the author of the much longer poem “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” from which Roland takes his slimy things with legs and Josiah derives his albatross-flavoured cough. On the question of whether or not Mr. Coleridge believed in fairies, historical record is silent.