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TRIVIA,
BRAINTEASERS
& FASCINATING FACTS
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What's
the Origin of April Fool's Day?
 | Throughout
antiquity numerous festivals included celebrations of foolery and trickery. The
Saturnalia, a Roman winter festival observed at the end of December, was the
most important of these. It involved dancing, drinking, and general merrymaking.
People exchanged gifts, slaves were allowed to pretend that they ruled their masters,
and a mock king, the Saturnalicius princeps (or Lord of Misrule), reigned for
the day. By the fourth century AD the Saturnalia had transformed into a January
1 New Year's Day celebration, and many of its traditions were incorporated into
the observance of Christmas. In late March the Romans honored the resurrection
of Attis, son of the Great Mother Cybele, with the Hilaria celebration. This involved
rejoicing and the donning of disguises. Further afield in India there was Holi,
known as the festival of color, during which street celebrants threw tinted powders
at each other, until everyone was covered in garish colors from head to toe. This
holiday was held on the full-moon day of the Hindu month of Phalguna (usually
the end of February or the beginning of March). Northern Europeans observed an
ancient festival to honor Lud, a Celtic god of humor. And there were also popular
Northern European customs that made sport of the hierarchy of the Druids. All
of these celebrations could have served as precedents for April Fool's Day. |
| During
the middle ages, a number of celebrations developed which
served as direct predecessors to April Fool's Day.
The most important of these was the Festus Fatuorum
(the Feast of Fools) which evolved out of the Saturnalia.
On this day (mostly observed in France) celebrants elected
a mock pope and parodied church rituals. The church, of
course, did its best to discourage this holiday, but it
lingered on until the sixteenth century. Following the
suppression of the Feast of Fools, merrymakers focused
their attention on Mardi Gras and Carnival. There was
also the medieval figure of the Fool, the symbolic patron
saint of the day. Fools became prominent in late medieval
Europe, practicing their craft in a variety of settings
such as town squares and royal courts. Their distinctive
dress remains well known today: multicolored robe, horned
hat, and scepter and bauble. |
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 | British
folklore linked April Fool's Day to the town of Gotham, the legendary town
of fools located in Nottinghamshire. According to the legend, it was traditional
in the 13th century for any road that the King traveled over to become public
property. The citizens of Gotham, not wishing to lose their main road, spread
a false story to stop King John from passing through their town. When the King
learned of their deception, he sent a messenger to demand that they explain their
actions. But when the messenger arrived in Gotham he found the town was full of
lunatics who were engaged in foolish activities such as drowning fish or attempting
to cage birds in roofless fences (though, of course, their foolery was all an
act). The King fell for the ruse and declared the town too foolish to warrant
punishment. And ever since then, April Fool's Day has supposedly commemorated
their trickery. But
there were rival mythological explanations linking the celebration to pagan roots.
For instance, April Fool's Day was often traced back to Roman mythology, particularly
the myth of Ceres and Proserpina. In Roman mythology Pluto, abducted Proserpina
and brought her to live with him in the underworld. Proserpina called out to her
mother Ceres (the Goddess of grain and the harvest) for help, but Ceres, who could
only hear the echo of her daughter's voice, searched in vain for Proserpina. The
fruitless search of Ceres for her daughter (commemorated during the Roman festival
of Cerealia) was believed by some to have been the mythological antecedent of
the fool's errands popular on April 1st. |
Anthropologists
and cultural historians provide their own explanations for the rise of April Fool's
Day. According to them, the celebration traces its roots back to festivals marking
the Vernal Equinox, or Springtime. Spring is the time of year when the weather
becomes fickle, as if Nature is playing tricks on man, and festivals occurring
during the Spring (such as May Day) traditionally mirrored this sense of whimsy
and surprise. They often involved temporary inversions of the social order. Rules
were suspended. Normal behavior no longer governed during the brief moment of
transition as the old world died and the new cycle of seasons was born. Raucous
partying, trickery, and the turning upside down of status expectations were all
allowed. Slaves ruled their masters. Children played tricks on their parents.
Anthropologists
note that Spring celebrations of misrule and mayhem, such as April Fool's Day,
which would appear at first glance to undermine social values of order and stability,
paradoxically actually help to reaffirm these values. The celebrations act as
a safety valve, giving people a chance to vent their social antagonisms in a harmless
way. In addition, they give people a chance to temporarily step outside of accepted
rules of behavior. People can then choose either to voluntarily return to a state
of order, thereby reaffirming society's values, or to remain in a state of anarchy.
Inevitably, they choose order.
The linkage between April Foolery and the Springtime is seen in story
that traces the origin of the custom back to the abundance of fish to be found
in French streams and rivers during early April when the young fish had just hatched.
These young fish were easy to fool with a hook and lure. Therefore, the French
called them 'Poisson d'Avril' or 'April Fish.' Soon it became customary (according
to this origin theory) to fool people on April 1, as a way of celebrating the
abundance of foolish fish. The French still use the term 'Poisson d'Avril' to
describe the unfortunate victims of April Fool's Day pranks. They also observe
the custom of giving each other chocolate fish on April 1. |  |
 | The
most widespread theory about the origin of April Fool's Day involves the Gregorian
calendar reform of the late sixteenth century. Although popular, this theory
has a number of problems with it. The theory goes like this: In 1582 France became
the first country to switch from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar established
by the Council of Trent (1563). This switch meant, among other things, that the
beginning of the year was moved from the end of March to January 1. Those who
failed to keep up with the change, who stubbornly clung to the old calendar system
and continued to celebrate the New Year during the week that fell between March
25th (known in England as Lady Day) and April 1st, had various jokes played on
them. For instance, pranksters would surreptitiously stick paper fish to their
backs. The victims of this prank were given the epithet Poisson d'Avril, or April
Fish. Thus, April Fool's Day was born. (In this illustration by William Hogarth,
the leaflet lying on the ground reads, "Give us our eleven days.") |
The
calendar change hypothesis might provide a reason for why April 1st specifically
became the date of the modern holiday. But it is clear that the idea of a springtime
festival honoring misrule and mayhem had far more ancient roots. The origin of
April Fool's Day remains clouded in obscurity. Basically no one knows exactly
where, when, or why the celebration began. What we do know is that references
to 'All Fool's Day' (what April Fool's Day was first called) began to appear in
Europe during the late Middle Ages. All Fool's Day was a folk celebration and
elite participation in it appears to have been minimal (which is why it's so difficult
to trace the exact origin of the day, because the people celebrating it back then
weren't the kind of people who kept records of what they did). But what is clear
is that the tradition of a day devoted to foolery had ancient roots. As we look
back in time we find many ancient predecessors of April Fool's Day.
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