This is the first series of three sets of lectures devoted to the perennial ‘others’ of the European Christian tradition, those phenomena which have always been present as active forces or cultural memories in Christian Europe and which theological orthodoxy has regarded as suspect. The first of the phenomena consists of the pre-Christian religions of Europe, defined in Christian tradition as paganism. These were suppressed as religious systems at the time of conversion to Christianity but elements of them survived as major components of literature, art and folklore.