Carl Jung - Credit: efigment
Racial memory is a hypothesis put forward by Carl Jung. It is memory that is inherited genetically, not gained through experience. This may not mean a memory of specific events, but rather an inherent genetic recollection of the experiences of one's ancestors.
Engraving of Otto von Bismarck - Credit: Evert A. Duykinck
Coat of arms of Schleswig-Holstein - Credit: Madden
Otto von Bismarck was the first Chancellor of Germany, whose unification he largely engineered. The Schleswig-Holstein Question, a fiendishly complex matter of sovereign inheritance, led in part to the formation of the new Germany.
If Bismarck is the ‘Great Hound', the ‘Two Powers’ would be Prussia and Austria, who went to war over the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein.
Boys Own Paper 1919 - Credit: Frederic Humbert (www.rugby-pioneers.com)
The kraken is a large, squid-like sea monster in Norwegian folklore. Alfred, Lord Tennyson wrote the lyrical poem, The Kraken (1830), quoted here. As a ‘worshipper’ of books, Aziraphale would be sure to recognise the reference.
The Kraken by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Below the thunders of the upper deep;
Far, far beneath in the abysmal sea,
His antient, dreamless, uninvaded sleep
The Kraken sleepeth: faintest sunlights flee
About his shadowy sides: above him swell
Huge sponges of millennial growth and height;
And far away into the sickly light,
From many a wondrous grot and secret cell
Unnumber'd and enormous polypi
Winnow with giant arms the slumbering green.
There hath he lain for ages and will lie
Battening upon huge seaworms in his sleep,
Until the latter fire shall heat the deep;
Then once by man and angels to be seen,
In roaring he shall rise and on the surface die.
God’s personal spokesangels. The Metatron is often said to be the voice of God, as God’s voice would be too powerful for humans to withstand. However, in this novel the role is more of a telephone operator who takes messages while God is out.
In the movie Dogma, Alan Rickman plays Metatron:
