In oral traditions worldwide, a story of deceit, magic, and violence perpetrated by a mythical animal-human (trickster).
The trickster-hero is both creator god and innocent fool, evil destroyer and childlike prankster. Coyote, the trickster of tales from American Indian peoples in California and the Southwest, is one of the most widely known. In the Pacific Northwest, the trickster is Raven. Many African peoples also have tales about tricksters (hare, spider, tortoise, etc.), which slaves brought to the New World. Tales involving the trickster Brer Rabbit were given literary form by Joel Chandler Harris .