"If I had lived a few hundred years ago, I guess I'd have been a court
jester, inventing stories and performing funny feats to make people
laugh and forget their problems. Back in the old days there was the
bubonic plague and crazy kings... But can our present society,
hedonistic as it is, totaly concerned with material accumulation,
fouling its air with poisons, killing and maiming, be any less in
need of humor?"
- Alan Abel
The Trickster
has a
long history
and a sizable mythic presence in many cultures, and a great deal of
information
about The Trickster's many
faces
and
talents
can be found on-line.
Learn about
Loki
the
misunderstood
trickster, and his adventures such as
the binding of the Fenris Wolf
and
the theft of Idun's apples.
And there's the adventures of Trickster Rabbit
and his modern incarnation
Bugs Bunny.
Meanwhile, Coyote mixes Native American trickster mythology and "crazy
wisdom" Zen.
The european tradition of
Court Fools
and
Jesters,
is part of a larger tradition of harlequins,
puppets,
jugglers,
comedians,
magicians,
clowns
and such, found everywhere from
ancient China
to the
corporate
world
to the
wrestling ring.
Delightful are the many stories of the
holy
fool
Nasreddin Hodja.
Read his
Curriculum Vitae
on-line.
A cross-cultural helping of tricksters would include (among many others)
Maui,
Mamo the Fool,
Exu: The Divine Messenger,
Legba,
Coyote,
Raven
(who steals the light),
Tyl Ulenspiegel,
Renard
the
Fox,
Eshu-Elegbara,
Uncle Tompa,
Glooscap,
and
Anansi.
(or Anancy, or
Ananse).
Bone up on the classics with tales of
Diogenes the Cynic
("Reproached for 'behaving indecently' in public, he lamented only that he
wished it were as easy to relieve hunger by rubbing one's stomach")
and Desiderius Erasmus's
Praise of Folly.
The Christian tradition has its
Symeon, the Holy Fool
and
The Feast of Fools,
and modern day pagans can invoke the trickster gods in
curious rites.
Tricksters and frauds in the religion racket are covered also on our
Great God Hoax page. Our
Theory page explores the
characteristics of the Trickster from various perspectives.
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