Name(s): ______

The Trickster

Questions

(Note: Some of these questions have been adapted from

  1. What do you think a trickster is? Or what might the role of a trickster be in a story?
  1. List a few trickster figures (or possible trickster figures—based on your guess of what a trickster is) from mythology, books, movies, religion, cartoons, etc.
  1. Share/discuss a “trickster” figure you know personally. Write down a few characteristics or a short story about this person.
  1. How doesLoke fit the trickster role? What are some of the things he’s done in the stories we have read that make him appear to be a trickster?

(Read the articles, then answer the following questions as best you can. Some of your answers might be speculations/guesses. I know you aren’t yet an expert in this area. Just try your best.)

  1. After reading the articles, how else does Loke fit the character of a trickster? Are there any ways he doesn’t seem to fit the role?
  1. Tricksters often reveal or “show up” flaws in the "big gods." Why? (If tricksters threaten order, authority, and hierarchy, then why do you think they appear in stories?)
  1. In what ways do tricksters mediate between gods and men? Why do you think tricksters take the side of humans? (Do they always? Loki helps the gods build the wall and gain valuable treasures. If you know Greek mythology, think also of Hermes.)
  1. What do you think these trickster stories say about the uses and character of cunning intelligence? (Can intelligence be both evil and good? When and why?)
  1. Tricksters can be both creators and destroyers. When and why?
  1. When do tricksters cause trouble and why?
  1. Why do you think most/many cultures include a trickster figure in their stories? Why do we like trickster figures?

The following comes from

Tricksters

Tricksters are archetypal, almost always male, characters who appear in the myths of many different cultures. As their name suggests, tricksters love to play tricks on other gods (and sometimes on humans and animals). But perhaps the best definition of a trickster is the one given by Lewis Hyde: "trickster is a boundary-crosser" (7). By that, he means that the trickster crosses both physical and social boundaries-- the trickster is often a traveller, and he often breaks societal rules. Tricksters cross lines, breaking or blurring connections and distinctions between "right and wrong, sacred and profane, clean and dirty, male and female, young and old, living and dead" (Hyde 7). The trickster often changes shape (turning into an animal, for example) to cross between worlds. In his role as boundary-crosser, the trickster sometimes becomes the messenger of the gods.

Lewis Hyde notes that in addition to crossing boundaries, trickster also creates them: "In several mythologies, for example, the gods lived on earth until something trickster did caused them to rise to heaven" (7). Since they are so clever, tricksters often invent new cultural goods or tools (e.g., making fire, musical instruments). Sometimes they are depicted as creators or makers of the world. Often, the deeds of tricksters end up being responsible for the way the world is now.

But there is another side to the trickster. As David Leeming notes, "he is sexually over-active, irresponsible, and amoral. But it is that very phallicism that signifies his essential creativity" (God 24). Tricksters are also creative liars. They lie in order to obtain sex or food, or the means to cook or procure food. Many of their tricks originate in this quest for food or sex. Lewis Hyde writes, "Trickster lies because he has a belly, the stories say; expect truth only from those whose belly is full or those who have escaped the belly altogether" (77).

Although he is clever, trickster's desires sometimes land him in a lot of trouble. Leeming notes that "he is often the butt of his own tricks, and even in his creative acts he is often crude and 'immature'" (God 24). In hunting cultures, the trickster is often depicted as a clever but foolish animal, led by his appetites. For example, in American Indian cultures, the trickster is often called "coyote" or "raven." Paul Radin writes:

. . . as found among the North American Indians, Trickster is at one and the same time creator and destroyer, giver and negator, he who dupes others, and who is always duped himself. He wills nothing consciously. At all times he is constrained to behave as he does from impulses over which he has no control. He knows neither good nor evil yet he is responsible for both. He possesses no values, moral or social, is at the mercy of his passions and appetites, yet through his actions all values come into being. But not only he, so our myth tells us, possesses these traits. (xxii)

Not all mythologists would agree that tricksters "will nothing consciously" and have "no control." But it is true that the trickster is often the wise fool.

Trickster tales have different functions in various societies. Certainly the stories are told because they are funny and entertaining; but they are also in some sense sacred. Radin reports that the reaction to trickster stories "is prevailingly one of laughter tempered by awe" (xxiv). Hyde notes that tricksters always function within some sort of "sacred context" (13). But in addition, as John Lame Deer said, tricksters "are sacred [because] we Indians also need their laughter to survive" (quoted in Erdoes and Ortiz xxi). Tricksters need the more serious gods to bounce off from and create their mischief. However, Richard Erdoes and Alfonso Ortiz point out that even supposedly serious chief gods can share some of the trickster's traits: for example, Zeus is both a philanderer and a shape-shifter--he changed into a swan in order to make love to Leda and into a shower of gold in order to impregnate Danae (xiv-xv). Zeus is also known for his ability to trick and outwit his rivals--remember the stories about Kronos and Metis?

Certainly, trickster stories are told for fun and laughs, and a trickster like Bart Simpson is a great character to get a plot started and entangled. But trickster stories also have something to say about how culture gets created, and about the nature of intelligence. Trickster represents a certain flexibility of mind and spirit, a willingness to defy authority and invent clever solutions that keeps cultures (and stories) from becoming too stagnant.

The following comes from

Loki the Trickster

THE most unpredictable and certainly the most dangerous god in the Northern pantheon was Loki. His activities ran from the merely mischievous to the blatantly malicious. Supremely clever, Loki ensnared everyone in complicated problems, to which he always supplied a remedy - through his solution often engendered even greater troubles.

Loki is an immensely powerful magician, and shares with Odin the ability to sex- and shape shift at will. His parents were both giants (the perpetual enemies of the gods) and Loki had some unusual children, including the huge wolf Fenrir, borne from Loki's brief dalliance with a giantess.

Loki was fair of face, and took many lovers, despite his constant criticism of goddesses who did the same. His wife was the faithful and hapless goddess Sigyn, whose fidelity surely he did not deserve. After Loki had been bound in a cave with a venomous snake dripping poison upon him as punishment,Sigyn sat by her husband's side and held a bowl over him to catch the drops before they hit him. When the bowl filled, she had to rise and empty it, and then the stinging drops fell directly upon Loki. It was said his twisting to escape the pain was the cause of earthquakes.

It is Loki who begins the chain of events that leads to the destruction of the gods. He does this by causing the death of the beautiful Baldr, Frigg's son, who in his goodness and perfection embodies the attainment of every desirable quality.Baldr's death plunges all of Asgard into mourning. Yet Loki feels no remorse, and in fact relishes every opportunity to exert his contrary nature. After Frigg had gone to great lengths to bring Baldr back to the land of the living by asking all beings to weep for his return, Loki (in the guise of an old female giant) steadfastly refused to shed a single tear for the slain god. Thus Baldr was consigned to the realms of the dead, under the governance of Lady Hel.

This loss of innocence represented by Baldr's death is the act that triggers Ragnarok, the end of all things.Ragnarok begins with famine and darkness and bitter cold—aWinter lasting three entire years. It ends with all creation becoming a flaming furnace. In the middle is staged the disastrous final battle in which the gods are arrayed against the powers of evil represented by the giants. Nearly everything and every body, in all realms, is destroyed. Loki fights against the gods, and is killed, as is Odin, Tyr, Freyr, and Thor. Even the elfs, dwarfs, Sun and Moon are destroyed. Out of this a new Earth arises, and a single man and woman, Lifthrasir and Lif, who had hidden themselves in Yggdrasil the World Tree, emerge.Baldr comes forth, and a few sons and daughters of the gods survive, and begin a fresh cycle of life.

This final lesson reminds us that nothing can remain static; even the gods need renewal It is true to his Trickster nature that Loki, in his destructiveness, serves as the impetus for creation in the eventual formation of the new world order.

The following comes from

More Info on Loki

Loki, according to SnorriSturluson, in his Edda (c. 1220 A.D.), was an Aesir god and the son of Farbauti and Laufey or Nal. His brothers were Byleistr and Helblindi. Loki is also called a giant.

The earliest literary treatment of Loki myths is from the 9th century. His depiction is complicated and contradictory. Many people advanced theories, including linguist and folklorist Jacob Grimm, who thought Loki the god of fire, like Prometheus (who brought fire to man and for his disobedience to Zeus was chained to a rock where his liver was eaten and regenerated each day) or Lucifer (whose name means 'light-bearer'); Jan de Vries, who considered Loki a typical trickster god; and Georges Dumezil, who considered Loki an incarnation of "impulsive intelligence."

In the Edda Loki transforms himself into a mare to lure away a stallion and therefore help the gods. As a mare, Loki gives birth to the stallion Sleipnir. Loki also sires the wolf Fenrir.

Loki tricks the blind god Hod into shooting Balder with the only entity that hasn't sworn an oath not to hurt Balder; that is, mistletoe. As punishment for his role in the permanent death of Balder, Loki is bound to a jagged cliff until world's end, Ragnarok. Loki is malevolent, cunning, clumsy, magical, and eloquent. He often associates with Thor or Odin.