The Trickster in LotR

[littlemanpoet]

I've been reading The Quest for Merlin by Nikolai Tolstoy (Little, Brown & Company, ©1985)

(I don't know of any relation to the famous Russian author.)

Who in The Lord of the Rings does the following remind you of? I'm not going to reveal who it reminded me of; I'd prefer to avail you of the same opportunity to react to the text below the way I did, without someone else's notions to clutter your reading. Once you have made your choice, it might be interesting to compare and contrast which elements fit LotR, and which don't, and what that may mean in the context of LotR. (Sorry if this is beginning to sound like a college level English assignment, but I think it would be interesting to take a look at how Tolkien used this Trickster archetype, what he integrated and what he discarded or used in another way.)

I'll quote at length.

Few mythological figures enjoy so widespread a provenance as a quirky character known as The Trickster. A many-faceted, complex personality, his traits add up to a rounded and recognizable individual - possibly the first to appear as a 'literary' concept. His attributes have been effectively summarized by the American anthropologist Paul Radin:

'Manifestly we are here in the presence of a figure and a theme or themes which have had a special and permanent appeal and an unusual attraction for mankind from the very beginnings of civilisation. In what must be regarded as its earliest and most archaic form, as found among North American Indians, Trickster is at one and the same time creator and destroyer, giver and negator, he who dupes others and who is always duped himself. He wills nothing consciously. At times, he is constrained to behave as he does from impulses over which he has no control. He knows neither good nor evil yet he is responsible for both. He possesses no values, moral or social, is at the mercy of his passions and appetites, yet through his actions all values come into being.' ... How is one to reconcile a figure at once benefactor, buffoon, and malignant tease; who is at the same time incarnate spirit of destructive mischief, and yet culture hero who teaches man the use of fire and cultivation of plants, a destroyer of monsters and divider of seasons?

The Trickster represents an elemental, whimsical being, whose integration into human society is only partial. There is a dichotomy in his nature, which prevents his ever breaking entirely free of his chaotic, primordial mould. He violates the most sacred taboos of society in a manner not normally contemplated even in myth. He is destructive, even murderous, on occasion; and yet his ready wit at other times leads him to teach his fellows the use of flint or the construction of dwellings.

... [much having to do with Merlin as trickster ... you'll have to read the book for yourself] ...

Symbolic of Trickster's efforts to rid himself unavailingly of the crudely bestial aspects of his nature are violent struggles maintained within himself, as when his left hand struggles against his right. Frequently he is made the dupe of his own cunning.

In a later chapter Tolstoy is writing about shamanism and says this:

Among primitive peoples the Trickster myth seems to have survived in much of its pristine purity. In societies little evolved from that of the Palaeolithic era, its therapeutic benefits remained fully vivid. It holds the earlier low intellectual and moral level before the eyes of the more highly developed individual, so that he shall not forget how things were formerly. Elsewhere, however, society became increasingly ordered and sophisticated, and rational, conscious modes of thought drove the older being deep down towards the position it occupies today, the unconscious psyche. The Trickster evolved into a god, and his generic characteristics became the individual traits and adventures of an identifiable personality.

These personalities can readily be listed: Til Eulenspiegel, Loki, Enkidu, Hermes, Pan, etc.

In other Indo-European mythologies it seems that this [Master of the Woods] aspect of the Trickster-god has been hived off onto another, darker deity.

To summarize, Varuna has his Shiva; Lug has his Cernunnos; Odin has his Loki; Enkidu has his Humbaba; Jekyll has his Hyde.

So anyway, thanks for bearing with me through this somewhat long batch of quotation. I'm quite sure that Tolkien has made use of the Trickster in LotR; what do you think?