APRIL FOOL AND ITS ORIGIN

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXIII, 13 July 1929, Page 12

APRIL FOOL AND ITS ORIGIN

The custom of playing practical jokes on the'first of April is general in most European countries, with the exception of Spain. In most countries it generally takes the form oi sending the victim on a fruitless errand, either to get something that docs not exist or deliver a message that causes him to be sent' on from One person to another until be discovers he is being made an April fool. In Scotland, until recently, it was usual to send a person on either of the first two days of the month with a. letter to some person, who on opening it, would tell the messenger that it ought to be delivered to someone else. At bis next place* of call flic bearer of the letter would again bi; redirected, and so on until he was driven to open tlie letter himself and found that it contained nothing but the lines: The first and second of Aprile Hound the gowk another mile. Gowk is tlie Scotch word for cuckoo, and the two days were called the gowk days. This method of April-fooling is found particularly in Germany and Italy, and there are curious rhymes in many dialects connected with it. In France the victim is asked to go in quest of some unattainable object. The joke is played mainly on children, and when they have fallen into the trap they are called “April fishes.’ In Paris they are told to go and get a dozen cocks’ eggs, or a stick with only one end. In Brittany they may bo sent to the chemist’s to buy sweet vinegar. Nobody knows what >'s the origin of the April foal, but it is thought that the custom may have something to do with the vernal equinox, more especially as on that day the sun emerges from the zodiacal sign of the Fishes. Many attempts have been made to trace a great antiquity for the custom of “sending the gowk another mile.” For instance, if is said that tliere was mi ancient Jewish custom of sending an unpopular person from one bouse to another, and that tin's is the meaning of sending tlie Christ on from one house 1 to another by ITerod, Annas, Caiap'.ias. and Pilate. A still greater antiquity is claimed for the custom by those who see ill it a commemoration of the. first sending out of Noah’s dove from t.hoAck when “she found no rest, for the sole of her foot” ; this also, according to tradition, took place on April 1.