Coyote and the World

Coyote was thoroughly annoyed.

He was banished from the pantheon. Him! Just because he called Odin All-Father the name Zeus one too many times, and muttering “By Jove I think he's got it!” every time Loki got Odin out of another mess of Odin's own making. Maybe rolling his eyes one too many times because all of Loki's solutions involved dressing up Thor as a woman, or Loki turning into a new shape? Coyote already did that trick, and it was to return the sun! Not to keep some fanboy frost giants off their collective ass... and onto Loki's apparently, if Sleipnir was the product. Or Pegasus.

But digging up old mammoth bones to make Victorians have naughty thoughts, THAT was out of bounds?? Teaching penguins a thing or two, and having nosy scientists observe? He had to quickly invent the Museum Obscura just to house all the wicked statues he carved during the Roman Empire.

Coyote wasn't going to wait around for the “bind me to a rock by my kid's entrails for a serpent to drip poison on me till I'm blamed for all the earthquakes around here” treatment.

Do you remember the way that foxes get rid of fleas? They rip up a piece of moss, and slowly, slowly, step into a river. As the water soaks them to the skin, the fleas crawl to higher ground. Then the fox steps in farther, and the fleas travel higher. Eventually the fox is swimming with just his nose above water, and the fleas are clinging to the moss, and the fox lets go and the moss island floats away with its biting cargo.

Coyote remembered. He'd done it often before. Incidentally, that explains Australia, but that's a different story.

Coyote decided that he was going to take his portion of the land far, far away from the Rainbow Bridge. He dug around till he found the deep rift, then pushed and pulled and wiggled till he could shove the mountains apart, and swum off with his rightful half. And that is how he took Gondwanaland with him, and we lost Pangaea.

(Hush, child. Of course the times don't make sense. What is time to the gods who live outside it? If you don't like the story, learn to tell your own. But this is mine, so I will continue.)

And that is how the rocks of the Appalachian Mountains and the Caledonian Mountains in Scotland line up, and also the ones in the African Atlas Mountains. And Coyote kicked so hard that a few ichthyosaurs got shot to the top of the Swiss Alps, and are there to this day.

But Coyote wasn't finished. He didn't get any of the primates when he took his land, and certainly none of the early chimps or bonobos. Eventually he enticed a few lemur-like ones across a land bridge he sneakily built under the Monkey King's nose, but they were no match for the bears. But bears didn't want to evolve, which was quite wise of them because they hibernate and humans don't, but they did regret not keeping that gunpowder secret under wraps.

But that's another story. Remind me to tell you about that weather station in Kolyuchin some day.

Coyote can be patient, and he knows people and gods alike. The trickster gods don't like competition no matter what they're called, and eventually some refugees would find that narrow strip that wasn't just more ice with white bears trying to eat them. They came south with their flint knapping, and though Coyote regretted the whole mammoth thing, he realized humans were much more interesting to mess with.

Eventually the gods realized, of course, and tried to stop him with Chicxulub – it set Coyote back, of course, but slowly he turned that crater into a tropical paradise. Then the gods sent an influenza wave or five, but Coyote managed to save enough people to continue each time. And plant some rather “interesting” artifacts, like that Mayan carving that everyone thinks is an astronaut but it's really a deep-sea diver. Loki could only fume with anger, and try to convince people that eight-legged horses were the way to go. Athena turned influencer and got some medieval chicks to weave unicorns into their tapestries instead, and Poseidon gave some fine horses to the Arabians and Mongols, so Loki threw in the towel in disgust and was more than willing to have poison dripped on his head for a few centuries.

And Coyote is a shape changer, so he keeps turning into a raven so that Huginn and Muninn can't come over to spy. He also swims back to Europe sometimes. Usually as a snake. Hey, it kept Loki away, didn't it? Ask Asclepius, Tiresias, and Eve about his interference sometime. But those are other stories.

Sometimes you can even see him return, like when people flip out when a large rattlesnake comes swimming out of the surf on the coast.

But Coyote realized that he can't be everywhere, all the time. Even the gods have limitations, and the internet was a long way off.

He figured out that no matter where, no matter when, there was always a part of the population of people that were stupid as mud. Well, to be honest, more stupid than mud, mud is quite intelligent if you have a talk with it. So Coyote planted things... Salt flats in the high desert, gold coins in pots along the river bank, rusted guns in the highest crotch of old trees. Rocks that move by themselves, strange lights in the sky or in the swamps, boats that stay afloat when violence or terror forces the occupants to leave. Monsters in lake or swamp, that are giant alligators or snapping turtles. Giants left from volcanoes, when the lava cooled, shaped into recognizable features. Clouds lit by the setting sun that were fiery birds in flight. Bears with mange that walk on two legs.

All things that can be explained by science, but science is too reasonable. Science is too much of logic and sanity, and people cannot abide by things that can eventually be explained.

And that, little Kokopelli, is why you're here. Now, Ganesha is willing to help, and had gifted you with the prehensile... um... well, not the tail. A little farther forward. No, not that far, why would you want a prehensile belly button? I will sing Monty Python songs at you if you don't sit still! Yes, the naughty one! Okay, I should be more specific. You know what's prehensile about you, child. See, Ganesha is also annoyed at the Monkey King, and wants to take him down a peg or three. Because even agents of chaos need a son turned sidekick. Buddha will take care of the Monkey King, and Joshua bar Joseph will take care of Loki, and that should clear the field. Go, sow mayhem and lots of kids, and make your own stories! We will turn them into myths and urban legends in no time at all.

And when you return, chortling in your joy, we'll teach you all about memes.