Penny -- That Russian tale (in synopsis) reminds me of the British folktale "The old woman who lived in a vinegar bottle" (actually the name for a certain-shaped cottage with a thatched roof), where she agrees to release a magic fish, and the fish promises to grant her wishes whenever she calls him.

But once she starts wishing, she always wants more and more, until she wishes herself to be God. and that's magic too far, and everything pops back to the way it was.

There's a version in the Grimms' tales, too.

As for Hephaestus, yes. Another parallel with Loki is how the medieval and Renaisance writers equated him with Satan; I actually got a bit teary-eyed when I read the passage about how anger is a good thing. When you grow up with a disability, you learn very early that the only emotion you're allowed to express is "happy," if you display anger, you're being greedy -- putting unfair demands on the "generous" caregivers around you. If you express sadness or depression, you're chided for being and burden, and reminded that no one will want you, unless you're cheerful (if not always in so many words, than in the subtext).

While deciding which stories to post next in my blog, I was reading the Grimms' "Tom Thumb" (actually, in the German, he's named Thumbthick). He's a trickster, too -- first convincing his father to sell him for money, and then tricking the people who bought him into letting him go; getting himself (accidentally) swallowed by a wolf, and then tricking the wolf into taking him home again.