The trickster is a universal archetype, found in every culture: Anansi among the African people, Coyote in the American Southwest, Raven in the Pacific Northwest, Rabbit in the American South, the leprechaun in Ireland, and Fox in South America. Josepha Sherman has collected forty stories of tricksters from around the globe. Sometimes human, sometimes animal, most often male (but occasionally a female, as Sherman demonstrates), the trickster is like a force of nature, an Id unchecked by Superego.
