Thanks for the "erudite description", Pooka - but it's not really - I've read a lot of stories, starting with a child's version of the theft of Iduna written by Elizabeth Clark, which made Loki rather like Hermes, and likeable. Other books contributing to the above are a set of Viking verses, in translation by Auden, and, I think, Rabbi Blue, plus the Bible.

Looking up Loki on the Internet, though, I find that some courses go down the same byways, plus one intersting point - in Icelandic or Danish houses, an offering would be made to Loki by putting the skin of boiled milk in the fire. This was described by one writer as the dregs. Such is the distancing of those with fridges from the realities of the past. My mother used to scald the milk to keep it overnight in the larder - in the morning it had lovely thick creamy skin, a bit like clotted cream. Dregs! A positive delicacy, much fought over in our house.

Penny