Tricksters and Shape-shifters Coloring Pages
Tricksters break the rules, and the best stories tend to happen because they do. Some are gods, some are animals and a few are a bit of both. They steal fire, cheat giants, wriggle out of bargains and get caught out by their own cleverness, and plenty of them can change shape whenever it suits them. These are some of my favourites from myths and folklore around the world.
Loki (Norse Mythology)
Loki could turn into almost anything, and he wasn't fussy about what. When the gods made a bad bargain with a giant builder, Loki fixed it by turning into a mare and luring away the giant's horse. Months later he came back with a foal that had eight legs, and it became Odin's horse Sleipnir...
Coyote (Native American Folklore)
Coyote turns up in stories from dozens of Native American nations, and he's rarely the same character twice. Sometimes he's a clever hero who brings fire to people, and sometimes he's a greedy fool whose plans fall apart in spectacular fashion. Often he manages both in the same story...
Kitsune (Japanese Folklore)
In Japan, a fox that lives long enough grows a second tail, then a third, gaining new powers with each one until it has nine. Some kitsune are messengers of the rice god Inari and bring good fortune. Others can pass as human and like nothing better than fooling the people who fall for it...
Anansi (Akan Folklore, West Africa)
Anansi the spider wanted to own all the world's stories, which belonged to the sky god Nyame. Nyame named a price that should have been impossible: a python, a leopard, a swarm of hornets and a fairy nobody could see. Anansi had nothing going for him but his wits, and he brought back all four...
Puck / Robin Goodfellow (English Folklore)
Robin Goodfellow was the house sprite of English folklore who would sweep the kitchen overnight in return for a bowl of cream, and play tricks on anyone who forgot to leave one out. Under the name Puck, he became the mischief-maker of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, where he gives one unlucky man the head of a donkey...
Robin Goodfellow coloring pages
Dionysus (Greek Mythology)
Dionysus, the Greek god of wine and celebration, did not like being underestimated. When pirates kidnapped him, thinking he was a rich young prince worth a ransom, grapevines suddenly wrapped around their mast and Dionysus turned into a lion right there on the deck. The terrified sailors leapt overboard and came up as dolphins...
Tezcatlipoca (Aztec Mythology)
Tezcatlipoca's name means "smoking mirror," and he carried a mirror of black volcanic glass that let him see into people's hearts. He was the Aztec god of the night sky and of change, and he loved to wander the world in disguise, sometimes as a jaguar, to see how people behaved when they thought nobody important was watching...
Set (Egyptian Mythology)
Set was the Egyptian god of storms, deserts and chaos, drawn with the head of an animal nobody has ever managed to identify. He's best known as the villain who tricked his brother Osiris into lying down in a beautiful chest at a feast, then slammed the lid. But the Egyptians needed him too, because every night it was Set who stood at the front of the sun god's boat and fought off the giant serpent Apep...
Were-Animals
Some shapeshifters can become anything they like. Were-animals are stuck with just one, and that choice changes everything, from the were-owl awake while the world sleeps to the were-bear losing a whole winter every year...