Tricksters, Seers and Holy Fools: The Archetypes That Look Like Us

Thu Nov 5 · Myth

On the morning he was born, the Greek god Hermes climbed out of his cradle, found a tortoise, and made the first lyre out of its shell. By that evening he had stolen fifty of his brother Apollo's cattle, walked them backward so their tracks pointed the wrong way, and gone back to bed in his swaddling clothes like nothing had happened. [1]

That's day one. Mythology is full of characters like him: the misfits, the rule-breakers, the ones who see too much. Strangely, the stories can't seem to work without them.

The trickster

Hermes is a classic trickster. So is Loki in Norse myth, who is endlessly clever, never quite on anyone's side, and the cause of most of the gods' problems and many of their solutions. [2] So is Coyote in the stories of many Native American peoples of the West, a figure who is foolish and brilliant at once, and whose blunders often shape the world. [3]

Tricksters don't follow the script. They take things apart to see how they work, say the thing nobody's supposed to say, and break rules that turn out to have been arbitrary all along. They're also usually the inventors. Hermes gets the lyre. Coyote's tricks and blunders often explain why the world is the way it is. [3]

Sound like anyone you know? The kid who took the toaster apart. The one who asked why, then asked why again. The one whose "mistake" turned out to be the better way.

The seer

Then there's Cassandra, the Trojan princess. In the best-known version of her story, Apollo gave her the gift of prophecy, and when she turned him down, he cursed her so that no one would ever believe what she said. [4] She warns Troy about the wooden horse. Nobody listens. The city falls. [6]

The Cassandra problem is painfully familiar to anyone who has spotted a pattern early: the rule that's going to cause trouble, the plan that won't work, the thing that's obviously about to break. Being right isn't the hard part. Being believed is.

Rust Cohle is a Cassandra, really. He sees the pattern first and everyone thinks he's the weird one, right up until he isn't.

The holy fool

The strangest of the three is the holy fool.

In Russian Orthodox tradition there's a type of saint called the yurodivy, a "fool for Christ." These were people who acted in ways that looked mad: going barefoot in winter, wearing rags, speaking in riddles, breaking social rules on purpose. They were treated as having a kind of truth that ordinary people couldn't reach. [5][7]

The most famous was Basil the Blessed, who lived in 16th-century Moscow and was said to walk around naked or nearly so, even in winter, and to rebuke the powerful without fear. [5][8] He was so loved that the colorful cathedral on Red Square, officially the Cathedral of the Intercession, is known to most of the world as St. Basil's. [5]

Think about that. One of the most recognizable buildings on Earth is popularly named after a man who refused to act normal.

Why the stories need them

Every culture seems to keep a seat at the table for these characters. Maybe because a society made entirely of people who follow the rules can't notice when the rules are wrong.

The trickster tests the rules. The seer reads where they're heading. The holy fool shows they were never as solid as they looked. Each of them stands a little outside the group and sees it more clearly because of that.

This isn't to say neurodivergent people are mythical. It's to say that myth noticed something about outsiders a long time ago: they're often holding a piece of the picture nobody else can see.

The flat-circle part

These stories are old, and they keep coming back. The trickster becomes Bugs Bunny. The seer becomes the scientist nobody believes in a disaster movie. The holy fool becomes Luna Lovegood.

Time is a flat circle, and apparently so is the cast list. Every generation, the same misfits walk back on stage. And every generation, someone in the audience recognizes themselves and thinks: oh. There's a place for me in the story after all.

Sources

1. Homeric Hymn 4: To Hermes. Trans. Hugh G. Evelyn-White (1914). Project Gutenberg. gutenberg.org
2. Encyclopaedia Britannica. "Loki." britannica.com
3. Encyclopaedia Britannica. "Trickster tale." britannica.com
4. Encyclopaedia Britannica. "Cassandra." britannica.com
5. Encyclopaedia Britannica. "Saint Basil the Blessed." britannica.com
6. Apollodorus, Library, Epitome E.5.17. Trans. J. G. Frazer (1921). Theoi Classical Texts Library. theoi.com
7. Kobets, S. "Iurodstvo." In P. D. Steeves, ed., The Modern Encyclopedia of Religions in Russia and Eurasia. Academic International Press.
8. Orthodox Church in America. "Blessed Basil of Moscow the Fool-for-Christ." oca.org