Those Naughty Tricksters Trivia Quiz

Answer: Rabbit

Bugs Bunny would no doubt be proud of Nanabozho, the rabbit trickster also known as Nanabush, Mishaabooz, and Gitchii-wabooz, who could be mischievous but never cruel or disrespectful towards humans. Gitche Manitou, the Great Spirit in Anishinaabe mythology, sent Nanabozho to Earth to teach humans.

In some myths, he is credited with creating animals as sources of food and clothing for humans, and plants as sources of medicine, while in others, he is tasked with naming the plants and animals, and also invented hieroglyphics and fishing.

He usually appeared in the form of a rabbit or hare, but could also appear as a crow or a coyote. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's epic poem 'The Song of Hiawatha' was based on various Ojibwe tales about Nanabozho; indeed, 'Manabozho' was the working title for the hero's name.

Answer: It was a blank canvas.

In the story, Hershel was selling various bits and pieces at a market and a customer asks him about the canvas. Hershel offers to explain about the painting to him for the price of a silver rouble. He tells the customer the name of the painting and the customer asks where the Jews are; Hershel replies that they have crossed.

The customer asks where the Egyptians are, and Hershel replies that they haven't arrived yet. Finally, the customer asks where the Red Sea is and Hershel replies, "It's parted, you idiot!" Hershel of Ostropol was a real person, or at least based on one; he lived in Ukraine in the 18th century and was employed by the notoriously tetchy rabbi to cheer him up.

Unfortunately, Hershel's joking cost him his life; he told a story making fun of Rabbi Boruch and Rabbi Boruch responded by having him thrown off a roof to his death.

Answer: The first human

In Abrahamic faiths, Adam was the first man. Many years earlier, ancient Sumerian religion told the story of Adapa, the first man, who was created by the god Enki. Enki was one of the Annunaki, and started out as the patron god of the city of Eridu, but worship of him later spread across the Mesopotamian region.

He was the consort of the fertility goddess Ninhursag, and also had incestuous relationships with his daughter Ninsar, the goddess of plants, and granddaughter Ninkurra. Enki created Adapa from a mixture of clay and the blood of Kingu, the son of the sea goddess Tiamat.

He later tricked Adapa into refusing immortality by telling him not to consume any food or drink offered by Anu, god of the sky, claiming it would kill him.

Answer: Kitsune

If you're a fan of manga such as 'Naruto' (in which the title character is possessed by a nine-tailed demonic fox) or 'Yu Yu Hakusho', you may be familiar with the kitsune. They are associated with Inari, the god of rice, and white foxes in particular are considered to be good omens as Inari's fox servants are white.

In Japanese folklore, kitsune take human form, often as beautiful women; the legendary courtesan Tamamo-no-Mae was a kitsune in disguise and was hunted down and killed after making the emperor Toba ill.

Her spirit possessed a stone and made it emit toxic gas until she was exorcised. Other kitsune would use ghost lights called kitsunebi to lead travellers astray. However, kitsune also kept promises and would always return a favour, and some provided knowledge or protection to humans.

Answer: Italy

Giufà is thought to have been based on Nasreddin, a Turkish folk hero and satirist known as Juha in Arabic, with the tales originating during the age of the Emirate of Sicily, when Sicily was under Muslim rule. He appears in a series of tales in Italo Calvino's 'Italian Folktales' (and if you're interested in Italian folklore, or folklore in general, it is worth a read) in which he gets up to various tricks.

In one story, his mother asks him to take some cloth to market and sell it to a person of few words.

He refuses to sell it to various people because they talk too much, and offers it to a plaster statue. When he returns the next day, he is angry with the statue for refusing to pay him and smashes it, only to find coins inside. In another story, he is never invited anywhere and rejected because of how scruffy he is, so his mother buys him some fine clothes.

A local farmer makes a fuss of him and invites him to dinner. Giufà puts food in his hat and pockets, reasoning that he should feed his clothes as they were invited, not him.

Answer: Lizard

Specifically, Agadzagadza is a male agama lizard, a distinctive critter whose colour varies depending on its mood and status; in 'display mode', their heads and tails turn a bright orange/red. Agadzagadza is associated with death. According to his legend, the Bura had no concept of death and didn't know what to do when one of their men fell ill, so they sent a worm to the sky god as a messenger to ask for advice.

The sky god told the worm to tell the people to hang the body from a tree and throw mush at it to bring it back to life, and that once the body came back to life, nobody would ever die again. Unfortunately for the worm, Agadzagadza was eavesdropping and made it back to the people before the worm.

He told them to wrap the body in a cloth and bury it in the ground, which they did.

When they realised they had been tricked, they complained to the worm, who replied that they should have waited for him instead of listening to Agadzagadza, and that they should dig the body up and ask the sky god for more advice.

The people couldn't be bothered and left the body in the ground, and from then on, death became a part of their lives.

Answer: An eye in the middle of his forehead

Saci is a distinctive fellow; he is a one-legged black man who wears a red cap and smokes a pipe. His cap is magic and he grants wishes to anyone who can steal it or capture him, although his cap is said to smell very nasty. It enables him to turn into a dust devil; one legend says that Saci can be trapped in a bottle while in his dust devil form, and that he can be captured with a sieve or by throwing a rosary into the dust devil.

His pranks range from mere mischief, such as spilling salt and hiding toys, to downright nastiness, such as releasing farm animals. If something goes wrong in a house, Saci is said to be behind it. Like the kitsune, a captured Saci can be loyal if treated well, but will turn on his captors if treated badly.

He is thought to have originally been based on the Yaci-Yatere, a similar one-legged creature from Tupi-Guarani folklore, and Saci stories became popular with African slaves trafficked to Brazil in the 18th century. Saci Day was created by a group known as Amigos do Saci as an alternative to Halloween, in protest against the Americanisation of Brazil.

Answer: Crow

Crow is a trickster figure in some Native American myths, and he's also a trickster in Australia. Among the Kulin people of Victoria, he is known as Waa and is one of their two moiety (an aspect of Aboriginal kinship in which everything is divided into two groups) ancestors along with Bunjil the wedge-tailed eagle. Like Prometheus, he brought fire to humans by stealing it from gods; the gods in this case were the Karatgurk sisters, who used live coals to cook their food.

The use of hot coals was a closely-guarded secret, but Crow became interested after eating a cooked yam and decided to start cooking his food from then on.

He tricked the Karatgurk sisters by hiding snakes in an anthill and telling them how delicious ant larvae were. When the sisters dug into the anthill, the snakes attacked and the sisters tried to fend them off with their digging sticks, on which they carried coals. Crow picked up the coals and flew away. Bunjil asked him to cook a possum, and other people began to gather at the tree.

The noise frightened Crow and he threw coals at them to scare them off, but he accidentally started a bushfire, which turned his feathers black (he was originally white). Bunjil put the bushfire out and the Karatgurk sisters were swept into the sky, where they became the Pleiades; the stars are the coals on their digging sticks.

Answer: Anansi

Anansi is one of the Caribbean's most famous trickster heroes, and an import from West Africa; the Anansi stories originated among the Akan people, particularly the Ashanti of Ghana, and when Akan people were kidnapped and trafficked to the Americas as slaves, they brought the stories with them. Anansi became a symbol of resistance among Ashanti slaves as, like many trickster figures, he often used his cunning against powerful foes.

He is either depicted as a spider with a human face or an eight-legged humanoid. One of the most famous Anansi stories involves Anansi going on a quest to capture four dangerous beasts in order to buy the world's stories from Nyame, the god of the sky, with the help of his wife Aso.

He captures Onini the Python by tricking him into proving that he is as long as a palm tree branch, and when Onini stretches himself out besides the branch, Anansi ties him up with creepers.

He captures the Mmoboro Hornets by wearing a banana leaf on his head and claiming it is raining, and that the hornets can shelter from the rain inside his gourd. Next, Anansi traps Osebo the Leopard in a hole in the ground and offers to help him escape, only to knock him out by lobbing a knife at his head. Finally, he captures the Mmoatia the Fairy by making an Akua doll and covering it in sap, and setting out a bowl of mashed yams.

When Mmoatia goes to slap the doll for being rude and not talking to her, she gets stuck to the doll. Anansi also throws his mother Ya Nsia in as part of the bargain, and Nyame is so impressed at Anansi succeeding where great kings had failed that he gives him all the stories in the world.

Answer: Robin Hood

'Robin Hood, Robin Hood, riding through the glen...' If you ever watched 'The Adventures of Robin Hood', or a certain Weetabix advert which parodied the theme tune, you'll remember this song. Robin Hood is the archetypal underdog hero who robs the rich and gives to the poor, and is often accompanied by various fellow outlaws known as the 'merry men'.

He has been played by Richard Greene, Patrick Troughton, Jonas Armstrong, Errol Flynn, Kevin Costner, Brian Bedford (in the Disney movie, where he was a fox) and Cary Elwes, amongst others.

The stories take place during the reign of King John, with him and the cruel, greedy Sheriff of Nottingham as the villains. He also appears as a supporting character in pantomimes such as 'Babes in the Wood'.

While there is no evidence to suggest that Robin Hood was a real person, he is thought to have been based on various outlaws, such as Roger Godberd, a supporter of Simon de Montfort, or a man called Robert Hood who lived in Wakefield, Yorkshire, during the 14th century.