the fool vs trickster

rabid

Female tricksters? One simply has to look at the ladies in Batman, Harley Quinn in particular.

Nanny Ogg from Terry Pratchett's discworld comes to mind, as well.

I think a lot of goddesses also have traits that embody the trickster, however they nearly always have larger roles. It's interesting that nearly all true tricksters are male; maybe men are the only ones content to just focus on trickery, while the ladies can multi-task!
 

tmgrl2

rabid said:
maybe men are the only ones content to just focus on trickery, while the ladies can multi-task!


:D :D :D :D

Welcome, rabid!

terri
 

beanu

Hi readers,
you might be interested to know that the "Tarot and Plato" thread is also discussing the Fool (starting page 3).

We are looking at two possible attributions to the Fool that seem to imply the same message.

1) The Fool is Mercury/Hermes, who flies up from the cliff to visit and talk to the gods, and who is known as a trickster - a "mercurial: personality.
This also relates to the concept of the "crazy" as "touched by God" who used to be treated with respect an reverence in some older communities.
"Out of the mouths of babes and fools..."

2) The Fool represents Plato's "Divine Frenzy" or divine intoxication, which can take four forms
Fire = Wands = Apollo = Prophetic
Water = Cups = Bacchus = mystic
Air = Swords = Muses = poetic/intellectual
Earth = Pentacles = Phaedrus = amorous/body

Frank Hall points out, regarding the Journey of the Fool :
"So the Fool is the journeyer through the four inspirations, ending in union with the "World Soul." Zero to Twenty-one."
 

beanu

The second link provided by tmgrl2 is superb.
so good, here it is again...
http://www.mythandimage.com/fool.html

When investigating fool/tricksters, any reference to the fools coat of many colours is relevant - Pied piper of Hamelin, etc. It is a strong link between otherwise apparently unrelated myths.

Back on Hermes,
There is a strong possibility that hermes was the original model for the "third figure" in the Lovers card.
Have a look at
http://losttarot.com/bookcontent/Lovers_html_14c35a71.gif
which ?I found associated with the text :
"Hermes unites the couple, but his dual nature is revealed by his forked beard and echoed in the Janus-faced head above the furnace. He smiles on the lovers, but knows that their union will precipitate their death"

So Forked beards may also be indicitave of the fool,
and tmgrl2's comments about the fool initiating change are very relevant.

He is the Master of Polarities (alchemical term) who creates magical change by uniting purified opposites (polarities, male and female.
 

tmgrl2

Thanks, beanu....for your information as well.

I thought that the page I linked was one of the best I have read so far on The Fool and The Trickster...but, then, much of this has been talked about already in our forums here.

Also, this complex role of The Fool/Trickster...who can appear at any point in one's "journey" whether it be of the whole journey of life or of one of the smaller treks toward change....argues once again against the idea of the The Tarot beginning with The Fool, and calling it The Fool's Journey.

terri


Welcome to AT!
 

HearthCricket

I wish I had seen this thread earlier. I recently posted this:

http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=117012

There is an excellent portrayal of Will Somers in the series The Tudors in an upcoming episode. I saw it early because our cable station allows that for subscribers. Up to an unexpected ending (which would make an EXCELLENT fool card) they do a fantastic job at portraying the role of a court fool. Who he was, what his role was, what he could get away with saying to the king that no one else could, how he would work riddles and be very much the trickster, while very wise and all seeing.

I was pondering this subject with a friend, this morning, and it made me think of the Fool often being shown as one about to walk off a cliff. Not looking where he is going and not heeding the warnings of the dog. Or are we being tricked? Does it just look like he is going to fall off and in the end will he turn to us with an evil laugh and grin, knowing he got the better of us! If you have the opportunity to watch this particular episode (will be aired in the US on Sunday, 9pm HBO) I highly recommend it.
 

tmgrl2

I would love to catch that episode, HearthCricket! I'll look at the HBO schedule!

I agree...The Fool isn't going to fall off any cliffs...maybe step into space, the spaces between worlds and boundaries.

terri
 

venicebard

Chronata said:
For me, the trickster/fool is well represented by the Native American tales of Coyote.
Absolutely, and in Aesop's Fables this becomes the oft-recurring character Fox (whom I call Fox-trickster, though at least once he outfoxes himself).

moonlitkim said:
In mythology, he is often compared to Loki, the trickster. While this may not be the most direct correlation (I would personally see it as the fool reversed) Loki is one who pranks others, without thought of the potential consequences.
And Loki was probably the same deity as Keltic Lugh: both are half-god-half-giant and revered for their craftiness, the latter perhaps shedding some light on Trickster, who is contrasted, I think, with the heroic, since craftiness is how the ordinary person makes up for lack of a hero's strength.

Fudugazi said:
In the history of Tarot, until Waite changed that card, the trickser is Arcanum I - knowadays called the Magician, originally il Bagatto, le Bateleur - aka the Mountebank or Trickster. But the Fool as the "initiator-trickster" also has a history - a more mythological type of trickster, and far more worrying than the fairground trickster-Magician.

In mythology, the Fool might be related to Loki (Norse), . . .
But Loki was no fool (witness how he had Balder killed by mistletoe, which is trump XVIIII THE SUN), so the proper trump for him would rather, I think, be XIIII (L, luis the rowan or quicken), which represents learning (i.e. learning one's craft, which IS the tempering of some raw material or other). The trickster per se IS LeBateleur, though, surely.

[As an aside, if one takes the Trickster as the god of the waning year (who takes over after the sacrifice of the heroic god of the waxing year at summer solstice), then the months outlining him in the (Irish) tree-calendar (gemini and aquarius) are H and L, hawthorn and rowan, which are THE FOOL and TEMPERANCE, suggesting the course of the waning year (cancer to capricorn) emerges from ignorance (THE FOOL) and progresses to mastery of one's craft (TEMPERANCE).]
The Fool lives outside of society, he walks between worlds, and that gives him both an advantage in what he can say and do, and a disadvantage, as he is an outsider. He also represents thresholds . . .
Interesting that in the tree-calendar H-huath-hawthorn (FOOL) comes just before D-duir-oak (HANGED MAN), the wood of doors, corresponding to Hebrew D, dalet ('door'), and Scandinavian Tifinag D (early Bronze Age), shaped like a door. But I see THE FOOL more as the wall itself (he who is excluded or separated off by hedge hawthorn), meaning that through which a door leads. (These are just my speculations, to be ignored by all who deem me a meddler.)
. . . in Yoruba mythology, Eshu is both the guardian of thresholds and crossroads whom we must all honour as we cross a threshold (e.g. stepping inside or outside our front door) or reach a crossroad in our lives, and the trickster who delivers necessary, sometimes cruel, sometimes gentle and funny, lessons to humans.
I wonder if this may give us some insight into the Gaulish god Esus, the woodcutter (that is, if Eshu and Esus are cognate)?
 

venicebard

nisaba said:
I don't really see the Fool a the trickster archetype. In his positive aspect he is too innocent to want to trick, and in his negative aspect he's much more likely to be the *target* of tricksters (and bullies). For me, the Magician as conjurer, door-to-door salesman and shyster is much more the trickster, as is the Devil card (in his incarnation, obviously as Pan or Loki, not so much his Chthulu or Baphomet mode).
I concur. The DEVIL card in tree-calendarese is R, ruis the rowan, whose month is last and thus winds up the Trickster's lower half of the year-wheel (summer-autumn). But R is also Hebrew guttural R or reysh, which, being at the base of the tongue, originally stood at the base of the wheel of the year (at libra, the height or middle of the waning year), which means it can stand for the waning year itself (the Trickster's realm).
A lot of the Knights are tricksters: Cups the womaniser, Swords, the silver-tongued devil, etc.
Interesting. Swords is the suit where the Queen is the real power (as in chess), not the King, so it may very well be by trickery that Knight interacts with King there to make the Queen sovereign. But my take on the Knight of Cups is that he is the Knight of the Grail, at which womanizer Gawain was a failure (and yet the Grail itself can be conceived as a feminine power, equivalent to Gnostic Sophia, so maybe by 'womanizing' one may understand 'seeking the truth').
 

beanu

Crazy, like a Fox