Trickster Gods Compared
Loki, Hermes and Set are the gods people file together as tricksters. The texts sort them apart. Hermes steals Apollo's cattle at a day old and is rewarded with an office; Loki helps the gods and destroys them, and ends bound; Set is not a trickster at all but the murderer of Osiris, whose one trick is a chest measured to his brother's body.
Why this wins its question: Refuses the lazy grouping: shows from the passages that Set is an antagonist rather than a trickster, and separates Loki the helper from Loki the enemy within one poem.
Key takeaways
- Hermes's trick earns him a job; Loki's tricks earn him chains; Set's trick is a murder. "Trickster" fits only the first two.
- Loki is the only one who is both the gods' helper and their destroyer, and the same poem (Lokasenna) shows both.
- Set is called Typhon by the Greeks; the Egyptian names are Seth, Bebon, Smu (Plut. Is. 62). Do not read the Greek name as a Greek myth.
- Ask "what does the trick cost the pantheon" — nothing (Hermes), everything (Loki), its king (Set).
Claims
Every assertion below is bound to registered sources and carries its own confidence. Weight them; do not treat the page as uniformly authoritative.
Hermes is a trickster who is rewarded. Born "a robber, a cattle driver ... a thief at the gates", he steals Apollo's cattle on the day of his birth and reverses their hoof-prints (HH4 13–20, 68–80), lies to Zeus, who "laughed out loud to see his evil-plotting child" (HH4 385–396), and ends with the lyre exchanged, an oath of friendship with Apollo, "an office from Zeus, to establish deeds of barter" and the post of "appointed messenger to Hades" (HH4 505–580). Apollodorus tells the same story and has Zeus appoint him "herald to himself and to the infernal gods" (Apollod. 3.10.2).
Loki is a trickster on both sides. As helper he borrows Freyja's feather-dress, finds the stolen hammer and plans Thor's bridal disguise (Thrymskvitha 3–20), and reminds Odin "that we both our blood have mixed" (Lokasenna 9). As enemy he claims "Mine is the blame that Baldr no more thou seest ride home" (Lokasenna 28), is bound "with bowels torn forth from thy frost-cold son" (Lokasenna 49–50; Voluspo 35), and at the end "at the helm stands Loki" of the ship of Hel's people (Voluspo 51).
Set is the antagonist, not the trickster. Plutarch, who calls him Typhon, gives him one trick: having "secretly measured Osiris's body", he has a chest made to fit and nails Osiris inside it (Plut. Is. 13); afterwards he dismembers the body into fourteen parts (Plut. Is. 18) and loses the lawsuit in which he accuses Horus of illegitimacy (Plut. Is. 19). Herodotus records that Horus "deposed Typhon" (Hdt. 2.144.2). Budge's texts call him "the god of evil", shown by Thoth to be "a liar" in the trial of Osiris (Budge Lit. ch. I), and "Stinking Face", speared and chained by Horus (Budge Lit. ch. VII).
The name Typhon is Greek: Plutarch says Typhon "is named Seth and Bebon and Smu" by the Egyptians (Plut. Is. 62), and the priests' allegory makes him drought and the sea against Osiris's moisture (Plut. Is. 33). Set's disorder is cosmic; Loki's is genealogical — his children are the wolf and "the worst of marvels" (Hyndluljoth 42–43); Hermes's is domestic — "continually throughout the dark night he cozens the tribes of mortal men" (HH4 577–578).
The endings sort them. Hermes is integrated — he swears never to steal from Apollo and Zeus "made them both friends" (HH4 505–525). Loki is expelled and bound — the gods will prepare "no more in their midst" a seat for him (Lokasenna 8), and "on the rocks the gods bind thee" (Lokasenna 49). Set's fate is told two ways: Plutarch has Isis release him from chains (Plut. Is. 19); Budge's Edfu legend has Horus behead him and drag him by the feet (Budge Lit. ch. VII).
Trickster Gods Compared: Loki, Hermes and Set
"Trickster" is a modern category, and the three gods most often put in it behave very differently in their own texts. The useful question is not "who tricks" but "what the trick does to the world of the gods".
Hermes: the thief who is given an office
The Homeric Hymn to Hermes is a comedy. Born at dawn, "at mid-day he played on the lyre, and in the evening he stole the cattle of far-shooting Apollo" (HH4 17–18). He drives the cows backwards so that the tracks mislead (HH4 75–78), invents fire-sticks, sacrifices two cows, and when Apollo hauls him before Zeus he denies everything from his swaddling clothes. Zeus "laughed out loud to see his evil-plotting child well and cunningly denying guilt" (HH4 389–390). The end is reconciliation, not punishment: the lyre for the cattle, an oath never to steal from Apollo again, "an office from Zeus, to establish deeds of barter amongst men", and the post of messenger to Hades (HH4 505–580). Apollodorus gives the same ending, with Zeus appointing him "herald to himself and to the infernal gods" (Apollod. 3.10.2). Hermes's trickery is absorbed into the order of Olympus and becomes a function of it.
Loki: the helper who becomes the enemy
Loki's tricks cut both ways, and the Poetic Edda keeps both. In Thrymskvitha he is the gods' agent: he borrows Freyja's feather-dress, flies to Jotunheim, learns the hammer's price, and talks Thor into the bridal veil (Thrymskvitha 3–20). In Lokasenna he arrives uninvited at Ægir's feast, claims the right to a seat because he and Odin "both our blood have mixed" (Lokasenna 9), and insults every god in turn; the climax is his confession, "Mine is the blame that Baldr no more thou seest ride home to the hall" (Lokasenna 28). The poem ends with the gods' sentence — "On the rocks the gods bind thee with bowels torn forth from thy frost-cold son" (Lokasenna 49) — which the seeress also sees (Voluspo 35). His children are the wolf and "the worst of marvels" (Hyndluljoth 42–43), and at Ragnarok he steers the ship of the dead against the gods (Voluspo 51). Hermes's trick costs Olympus nothing; Loki's cost Asgard everything.
Set: the murderer, not the trickster
Set — Typhon in Plutarch and Herodotus, "Seth and Bebon and Smu" in Egyptian according to Plutarch (Plut. Is. 62) — has only one episode that resembles a trick. He measures his brother's body in secret, has a beautiful chest made to that size, and at a feast offers it to whoever fits it; when Osiris lies down, the conspirators nail the lid and pour lead over it (Plut. Is. 13). Everything after that is violence: the body cut into fourteen parts (Plut. Is. 18), the war with Horus and the failed lawsuit over Horus's legitimacy (Plut. Is. 19). Herodotus knows him only as the one whom Horus "deposed" (Hdt. 2.144.2). Budge's Egyptian texts call him "the god of evil", shown "a liar" by Thoth (Budge Lit. ch. I), and "Stinking Face", speared, chained and beheaded (Budge Lit. ch. VII). The priests' allegory that Plutarch reports makes him the drought and the sea against Osiris's moisture (Plut. Is. 33) — a cosmic opponent, not a thief.
Criteria
| Criterion | Hermes | Loki | Set |
|---|---|---|---|
| The trick | Steals Apollo's cattle at a day old (HH4 68–80) | Bridal disguise for Thor; also Baldr's death (Thrymskvitha 14–20; Lokasenna 28) | The chest made to Osiris's measure (Plut. Is. 13) |
| Relation to the king of the gods | Son; Zeus laughs (HH4 385–396) | Blood-brother of Odin (Lokasenna 9) | Brother of the king Osiris, whom he kills (Plut. Is. 13) |
| Cost to the pantheon | None; a new office (HH4 515–517) | Baldr, then the gods themselves (Lokasenna 28; Voluspo 51) | The king; the throne contested (Plut. Is. 19; Hdt. 2.144.2) |
| Ending | Friendship with Apollo (HH4 505–525) | Bound with his son's entrails (Lokasenna 49; Voluspo 35) | Released by Isis (Plut. Is. 19) or beheaded by Horus (Budge Lit. ch. VII) |
| Cosmic reading | Night-time cozening of men (HH4 577–578) | Father of the monsters (Hyndluljoth 42–43) | Drought and sea (Plut. Is. 33) |
Is Loki the Norse Hermes?
No. Hermes is a trickster the order can use; Loki is one it cannot. The nearest thing to Hermes in the Norse poems is Loki's role in Thrymskvitha, and the nearest thing to Loki in Greek is not Hermes but Typhon — which is exactly the name the Greeks gave to Set.