He seems to fill the trickster-role to *me*, but I'm not an expert. He's certainly the Greek pantheon's fast-talker, who gets himself and others into and out of scrapes.
> I don't think I'd characterise Loki as a particularily tame trickster
> either. He's responsible for the same sort of mischief as Eurmal,
> even worse since he's responsible for killing Baldur and sides with
> the god's enemies in the end.
Loki's the most extreme case I know of, but even there, he is a *mixed* blessing, not just a curse. He's the father of Odin's war-horse, and his pranks result in the creation of Odin's spear and Thor's hammer--without Loki, the Aesir wouldn't have lasted nearly as long as they did. But like Eurmal, he turns on you in the end.
As I understand it, "Loki" means "fire", and like all fire, he can be creative or destructive, and you need to keep a close eye on him.
Still, he's more like Eurmal than most other trickster figures I know of.
FWIW, I also see Christ as a trickster-figure--or, rather, since I'm a Christian, I see all the *other* trickster-figures as glimpses into the archetype, Christ. But that's probably off-topic for this mailing list, and probably OT even for the Digest...
> Why not follow an entertainment deity then? Maybe Dara Happa has a
> clown god (yeah, sure they do:-))
>
> Whoopsie - Dara Happan god of pratfalls - Jester for Yelm.
I think they *would* have a Jester god--and like all jesters, he serves the role of "sayer of things you can't say", while upholding the order, because he says it *under the authority of the Emperor* who commissioned him.
"It is the prerogative of fools and children to say that the emperor has no clothes. Of course, the emperor remains an emperor, and the fool remains a fool."
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