Trickster Figures in World Myth

In every continent of the world, folk tradition remembers a figure of mischief and cunning, a creature who breaks the rules, cheats the powerful, and — sometimes accidentally, sometimes by design — creates the world as we know it. The trickster is the wise fool of the human imagination, and the family resemblance between the tricksters of different cultures is so striking that some scholars have spoken of a single worldwide figure. The Norse have Loki, the West Africans have Anansi, the Native American Southwest and Plains have Coyote, the Pacific Northwest and Inuit have Raven, the Japanese have the Kitsune and Tanuki, the Yoruba have Eshu and Elegba, the Polynesians have Maui, the Middle East and Southern Africa have the jackal, the medieval Europeans had the fox of the Reynard cycle, and the ancient Greeks had Hermes. The list is long, and the comparison is one of the most revealing in the whole study of folklore.

This page is part of the wider survey of Folk Heroes and Legendary Figures. It explores the trickster as a folk-heroic type in two companion articles: one on Loki’s role in Norse myth and one on the comparison of Coyote and Raven, and it connects to the wider currents of European Folklore, Norse Folklore, the West African storytelling of the griots, and the polynesian Maui of the Pacific.

The Trickster as a Type

The trickster is a recurring figure in folk tradition, and the great folklorists of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries — from the brothers Grimm to Vladimir Propp, from Paul Radin to Carl Jung — have tried to define the type.

The trickster is, first, a boundary-crosser. He moves between the world of the gods and the world of humans, the world of the living and the world of the dead, the world of the village and the world of the wild. Loki moves between Asgard and Jötunheim; Anansi climbs the long spider-thread from earth to the sky of Nyame; Raven flies between the daylight world of the upper air and the undersea world of the old chief who keeps the sun. The trickster is at home in the liminal places: the crossroads, the doorway, the edge of the village, the moment between sunset and dark.

The trickster is, second, a shape-shifter. He changes his form, often with great speed and great humour. Loki turns himself into a salmon, a mare, an old woman, a fly. Anansi appears as a man, a spider, a dog, a whirlwind. Coyote becomes a flea, a buffalo, a handsome young man. The trickster’s body is not fixed; he can be the size of an insect one moment and the size of a mountain the next.

The trickster is, third, a creator. Although he is often a foolish and lustful creature, he is the figure through whom many of the world’s most important things have come into being. Raven steals the sun from a miserly old chief and sets it in the sky. Anansi brings the stories down from the sky god. The Greek Prometheus, sometimes classed as a trickster, steals the fire from the gods. Coyote of the Navajo tradition, in some tellings, helps to set the world in order. The trickster is not always a creator, but he is always involved in the act of bringing things into being — including the things that other people would rather he had left alone.

The trickster is, fourth, a transgressor. He lies, cheats, steals, and seduces. He breaks the rules that the gods have laid down, and he breaks them with great gusto. He is, in this sense, the figure of the human appetite for things that ought not to be had, and the folk tale of the trickster is often a meditation on the uses and abuses of that appetite.

The trickster is, fifth, a sufferer. Although he is brilliant at getting out of trouble, he is also often caught. Loki is bound beneath a rock with the entrails of his son. Anansi is beaten by his wife. Coyote is shot, trapped, and humiliated in dozens of tales. The trickster’s punishment is a reminder that even the cleverest cannot escape the consequences of his or her actions, and the audience’s laughter at the punishment is part of the moral point of the story.

The Tricksters of the World

Loki of the Norse

Loki is the trickster of the Norse world, and one of the most complex figures in any mythology. He is a giant by birth, the son of Fárbauti and Laufey, and yet he is also the blood-brother of Odin and the companion of Thor. He gives Odin the gift of poetry; he gives Thor the hammer Mjölnir; he arranges the walls of Asgard; and he also, in some sense, arranges the death of the god Baldr. He is bound by the gods at the end of the Lokasenna, and he is destined to break free at the Ragnarök and lead the forces of chaos against the gods. The Norse are unusual among the great mythologies in giving their trickster a position of genuine centrality.

Anansi of the West Indies

Anansi is the trickster of the Akan and Ashanti tradition, the spider who stole all the stories from the sky god and brought them down to the people of the earth. He is a small creature, often comic, often humiliated, but always clever. He travelled with the enslaved Africans across the Atlantic and became the great trickster of the Caribbean and the American South, where he merged with the Brer Rabbit of the Uncle Remus stories.

Coyote of North America

Coyote is the trickster of the Native American Southwest and Plains. He is a culture-bringer who, in some tellings, helped to set the world in order; he is also a fool, a lecher, and a braggart. His tales are told by the Navajo, the Hopi, the Crow, the Blackfoot, the Zuni, and many other peoples, and the comparison between the Coyote cycles is a small study in itself.

Raven of the Pacific Northwest and the Inuit

Raven is the trickster of the Northwest Coast and the Inuit. He is also a creator: in the Haida and Tlingit traditions he stole the sun, the moon, and the fresh water from a miserly old chief and set them in the sky. In the Inuit tradition, he is the bringer of daylight. The comparison of Coyote and Raven is the subject of a companion article in this section.

The Kitsune and the Tanuki of Japan

The Japanese have two great tricksters. The Kitsune is the fox, a shapeshifter who can take the form of a beautiful woman, who can possess humans, and who is the messenger of the Shinto god Inari. The Kitsune is an ambivalent figure, sometimes helpful, sometimes deadly. The Tanuki is the raccoon-dog, a comic and well-meaning drunkard who, in the popular stories, uses his magic leaves to transform himself into all manner of things.

Eshu and Elegba of the Yoruba

The Yoruba tradition remembers Eshu (also called Elegba or Legba) as the trickster-messenger of the gods, the one who opens the way. He is a small, dark, pot-bellied figure who speaks all languages, who carries a staff, and who stands at the crossroads. He is the lord of chance, the keeper of the keys, the patron of the traveller. He is honoured at the beginning of every ceremony because no message can be carried without him.

Maui of Polynesia

Maui is the great Polynesian trickster-hero, a demigod of irresistible cunning. He fished up the North Island of New Zealand from the bottom of the sea. He snared the sun with a rope of coconut fibre to slow its passage. He stole fire from the underworld goddess Mahuika. He tried, in his last great adventure, to crawl through the body of the death goddess Hine-nui-te-pō to win immortality for humankind — and was crushed when she woke.

The Jackal of the Middle East and Southern Africa

The jackal is the trickster of the Arabic and Persian Kalila wa Dimna and of the southern African folk tale. He is a coward, a cheat, and an opportunist, and he is the figure through whom the folk tale of the Middle East and the African bush explores the limits of cleverness. The jackal of the Hitopadesha and the Panchatantra has clear cousins in the European fox of the Reynard cycle.

The Fox of the European Reynard Cycle

The medieval European Reynard is the trickster of the great beast-epic, the long poem in which the fox outwits the wolf, the bear, the badger, the lion-king, and the whole court of the animals. The cycle of poems composed in French, Dutch, German, and English between the twelfth and the sixteenth centuries gives us one of the most popular and durable figures of medieval European literature.

Hermes of the Greek Tradition

The Greek Hermes is a trickster in the older sense, a god of the boundary, the messenger of the gods, the patron of thieves, of travellers, and of merchants. He is born in a cave on Mount Cyllene, and on the day of his birth he steals the cattle of Apollo, hides them in a cave, and then, when challenged, plays the innocent. He is the model of the Greek comic hero, and the Romans took him over as Mercury.

Trickster Stories and the Moral Order

The trickster is, on one level, a comic figure, and the laughter of the audience is part of the point of the trickster tale. But the trickster is also a deeply serious figure, and the trickster tale is also a meditation on the moral order.

The trickster is the figure through whom the small and the weak can imagine a victory over the great and the strong. He is the figure through whom the human appetite for things that ought not to be had can be safely indulged. He is the figure through whom the arbitrary nature of the social order can be exposed. He is the figure through whom the audience can experience the thrill of transgression without paying the price of the trickster.

The trickster is also a teacher, often more honest than the king. The Greek Aesop, who was sometimes classed as a trickster, used the fables of the animals to expose the follies of the human world. The West African Anansi is the keeper of all the stories, and the keeper of the wisdom that the stories contain. The Norse Loki is the source of the most cutting criticisms of the gods in the whole of the Norse mythic corpus. The trickster is the figure who, by his very transgressive nature, can say what no one else can say.