Amaguq   (Alaska) 

In Inuit mythology Amaguq is a trickster and wolf god.  

Kitsune   (Japan) 

In Japanese folklore, the kitsune are often presented as tricksters, sometimes very malevolent ones. The trickster kitsune employ their magical powers to play tricks on people; those portrayed in a favorable light tend to choose as targets overly-proud samurai, greedy merchants, and boastful commoners, while the more cruel kitsune tend to abuse poor tradesmen and farmers or Buddhist monks. 

Nezha   (China)

Nezha is a deity, the enfant terrible Trickster of Chinese mythology. Nezha is often depicted flying in the sky with a wheel of fire under each foot, a golden hoop, The Cosmic Ring around his shoulder, and a spear in his hands. Nezha is usually depicted as youth and rarely as an adult.

Krishna   (India) 

The World Magician, tricking all men and gods by his playful ruses as an incarnation of Vishnu, Lord of the World.

Loki   (Norse Mythology)

Loki is connected with fire and magic, and can assume many different shapes (horse, falcon, fly). He is crafty and malicious, but is also heroic.


Eris, Prometheus, Hephaestos, Hermes   (Greek Mythology)

Eris, Prometheus, Hephaestos, Hermes -- Hermes Trismegistus -- Odysseus (example of a human trickster, who manages to evade dangers thanks to his wits. The Cyclops Polyphemus is an example of this)

Reynard The Fox   (France)

He seems to have originated in French folklore. An extensive treatment of the character is the Old French Le Roman de Renart from around 1175, which sets the typical setting. Reynard has been summoned to the court of king Noble, or Leo, the Lion, to answer charges brought against him by Isengrim the Wolf. The stories typically involve satire whose usual butts are the aristocracy and the clergy, making Reynard a peasant-hero character.


Till Eulenspiegel   (Germany) 

Character who originated in Middle Low German oral tradition. In the folk story, he is presented as a trickster who played practical jokes on his contemporaries. Although craftsmen are featured as the main victims of his pranks, neither the nobility nor the pope are exempt from being fooled by him.

Br-er Rabbit, Tar Baby   (United States)

The tar baby was a trap made of tar used to capture Br'er Rabbit in a story which is part of American plantation folklore. Br'er Fox played on Br'er Rabbit's vanity and gullibility to goad Br'er Rabbit into attacking the fake and becoming stuck. The story was originally published in Harper's Weekly by Robert Roosevelt of Sayville, New York. Years later Joel Chandler Harris wrote of the tar baby in his Uncle Remus stories.


Coyote   (Native America)

The trickster is teacher, survivor and fool, coyote has inhabited this land we call America much longer than the later arriving humans from Asia, who have only been here about 10,000 years or so. The small prairie wolf known as coyote mostly attracts their interest in a long standing, unsuccessful effort at extermination; but this creature with a perpetual bounty on its hide resembling a medium-size dog with a narrow face, tawny fur and a bushy tail, is only one aspect of what native American peoples have called Coyote, Coyote Man and Old Man Coyote.

While coyotes (the animal) are certainly responsible for destroying some domestic livestock, they are important to the larger environment as scavengers and destroyers of rodents. They are omnivorous feeders; they prey on small animals, eat plant matter, carrion and garbage, and they sometimes though not regularly team up to hunt larger animals. They are an invaluable part of a healthy ecology and environment, which sustains all life, including that of domestic livestock.

That coyote has persisted, prospered and expanded, both in numbers and range, since the livestock industry put a price on his head is an indication of why Old Man Coyote continues to live in the mythology and dreams of native America and in the literature and imagination of its more recent arrivals. Coyote Man is the primordial trickster/teacher of American lore.

Carl Jung, The Trickster Archetype, Coyote

A primitive cosmic being of divine-animal nature, on the one hand superior to man because of his superhuman qualities, and on the other hand inferior to him because of his unreason and unconsciousness. The more civilized we become, the more we will blame a "shadow" for our misfortunes. Like the trickster of old, the shadow represents a quality that isn't accepted into the awareness. It can 'pester' us unmercifully but always has a gift for us, a missing quality, an attitude needed to cope, or self-realization.

Kokopelli   (Native American)

Kokopelli is a fertility deity, usually depicted as a humpbacked flute player who is worshipped by many Native American tribes in the Southwestern United States.

Manabozho or Hare of the Algonkian peoples   (Native American) 

His father was Earthmaker, who sent Hare to be born of a virgin as a human being in order to destroy evils threatening mankind.

Cin-an-ev   (Native American) 

The Ute are a tribe of Native Americans from the western United States. Siats is a cannibalistic clown monster. Cin-an-ev is a wolf trickster and culture hero. The Ute especially venerated a bear spirit, who occasionally went on killing sprees. Sunuwavi, a Ute hero, once rescued his people from this by finding the qumu, the bear's fire medicine (spiritual power), and covering it with water, thus ending the spirit's power.

Mannegishi   (Native American) 

The Mannegishi (singular the same) are a race of trickster people in Cree folklore. They are described as semi-humanoid, being sexdactylous humans with very thin and lanky arms and legs and big heads minus a nose. According to one Cree schema of the mythology, there are two humanoid races, one being the familiar human species and the other being the "little people", i.e. Mannegishi. These people are said to live between rocks in the rapids. One of their biggest delights -- a completely non-heroic form of trickster behavior -- is to crawl out of the rocks and capsize the canoes of people canoeing through the rapids, spinning them to their death. The Mannegishi is also known as the gahonga. The Mannegishi has gained interest in recent years due to its possible cryptozoological connections. It is believed by some that the Dover Demon is what the Cree saw when they told stories of the Mannegishi.

Raven   (Native American)

Raven is famous among the Native Americans of the Pacific Northwest. Raven assumed the divine trickster role, similar to Coyote in other parts of the country. The divine trickster could play the fool and the joker, but the intent of doing so was to teach. Raven is also credited with sheltering the first humans, and with placing the sun, moon, and stars in the proper places in the sky. He was an expert in magic, and brought revelations from the spirit world to those who needed them.

Tonenili   (Native American) 

Navajo trickster rain god whose name means 'water sprinkler'.

Bamapana   (Australia) 

In Australian Aboriginal mythology (specifically: Murngin), Bamapana is a trickster hero who causes discord. He is obscene and profane and once committed incest, thus breaking a strict taboo.


Tezcatlipoca   (South America)

In Nahuatl mythology, Tezcatlipoca ("smoking mirror") was the god of the night, the north and temptation. He owned a mirror (Itlachiayaque, "Place From Which He Watches") that gave off smoke, killing his enemies. He was the antithesis and rival, and eventually, the twin of Quetzalcoatl. He was a god of beauty and war.

Attributes of Tezcatlipoca and Quetzalcoatl originally came from older traditions than the Aztecs: the Olmecs and the Toltecs. The Aztecs assimilated them in their religion, and the two deities were equated and considered twin gods. They were both equal and opposed.

Thus Tezcatlipoca was called "Black Tezcatlipoca", and Quetzalcoatl "White Tezcatlipoca". 

Saci   (Brazil) 

The Saci (pr. sah-SEE) is the most popular and bizarre character of Brazilian folklore. He is a one-legged dwarf, with holes through the palms of his hands, who smokes a pipe and wears a magical red cap which enables him to disappear and reappear wherever he wishes. Considered an irritating prankster in some parts of the country, and a dangerous and malicious creature in others, he will nevertheless grant wishes to anyone who manages to steal his magic cap.

There are actually three types of Saci: the best-known Saci Perere is black as coal, the Saci Trique is mulatto and more benign, and the Saci Sacura has red eyes.

An incorrigible prankster, the Saci will not cause major harm, but there is no little harm that he won't do. He will hide children's toys, set farm animals loose, torment dogs, and prevent chicken eggs from hatching. He may suck the blood of horses, like a vampire bat, and tie knots in their manes. In the kitchen, the Saci may spill the salt, sour the milk, burn the bean stew, or drop flies into the soup. If a popcorn kernel fails to pop, it is because the Saci put a spell on it. Given half a chance, he will dull the seamstress¹s needles, hide her thimbles, and tangle her sewing threads. If he sees a nail lying on the ground, he will turn it with the point up. In short, anything that goes wrong, in the house, or outside it, may be confidently blamed on the Saci.

Besides disappearing or becoming invisible (often with only his red cap and the red glow of his pipe still showing), the Saci can transform itself into a Matiapere, an elusive bird whose melancholic song seems to come from nowhere. A Saci will not cross water streams, lest it will lose all his powers, a fact that will be undoubtedly useful to people who find themselves being pursued by one. If that happens, the victim should drop ropes full of knots; the Saci will then be compelled to stop and undo the knots, thus allowing his victim to escape. One can also try to appease him by leaving behind some cachaça, or some tobacco for his pipe.

Kappa, Maui God of One Thousand Tricks   (Hawaii)

An ugly, excitable, but quick-witted half-divine, half-mortal trickster who was covered in tattoos. If he didn't like the ways things were, he changed them. And there were many things Maui didn't like. For example, the sun.

Every day, Maui watched human beings scramble to work, or plant, or cook, or make bark cloth in the few precious hours between sunrise and sunset. There was never enough time, the sun moved too fast, the people suffered. They had no choice but to eat their food raw.

Maui grabbed his rope and his grandmother's magic jawbone. With a quick flick of the rope, he lassoed the sun and beat the sun-god with the jawbone, until the golden one agreed to move more slowly across the sky. Then Maui looked closely at the sky itself. It hung way too low. With a mighty heave, Maui shoved the firmament up higher.

The Maui went fishing. His brother wouldn't share their bait, so Maui punched his own nose and used his blood to fish. He hauled in catches so big they became the Polynesian islands.

In mythology the pranks of the trickster seemed almost a compulsion, something they could not control. The trickster was usually blessed with a curiosity that led them into trouble, but also had a cunning wit to get them out of trouble. He played the Game!

In oral traditions worldwide, a story of deceit, magic, and violence perpetrated by a mythical animal-human trickster. The trickster-hero is both creator god and innocent fool, evil destroyer and childlike prankster.