April Fools: The History of this Mad, Merry Day! :)

It is April Fool's Day today! In our house, that calls for loads of light-hearted pranks, many of which are remembered for years after. We bring forth all of our wit and ingenuity and generally fare well enough. But I thought I've give you a little bit of history of this jolly holiday, just for fun....

It all started (at least according to most records) back in the 4th century a.d. when the Celts and Gauls would sneak into each other's encampments to swap their rivals' real weaponry for carved sticks and stones and other things. Of course this got rather tiresome for both parties so it was unanimously restricted to happening during the Festival of Young Stars which fell around the first weekend of April.

In the next few centuries the holiday spread throughout Europe and into the East. There are even accounts of a young, somewhat plucky armor-bearer tricking Cesar into thinking Rome had started a Revolution and was marching to burn the temples! Needless to say, the youth got prison time for that. :P Note to self: Never play April Fool's tricks on an emperor!

But that didn't deter merry pranksters from celebrating the chance to make fools of their friends! The holiday took on gigantic proportions in France so that there were huge parades in the streets where the royal family was mixed up among the people dressed, in raggle-taggle clothes. According to popular songs and stories of that early period if you caught one of the royalty and kissed them you would receive a ransom of gold to let them go---needless to say there was a scramble to find and kiss the queen and her little children! :D That tradition, of course, led to security issues so was discontinued. The holiday died out in popularity in France and was revived around 1530 in England after being mentioned in one of Shakespeare's lesser-known plays.

The holiday, at this point, had morphed from its original form but now swung back to the pendulum--petty thieveries were being committed in London and other large cities under the guise of making the victim appear an "April Fool". In 1542 the King of England issued a decree that

"Alle sutch Aprile fooleries must needs be comited on Aprile the first and on no uthre day of thee yeare."

That was how the holiday came to be set officially for April 1st of every year. Eventually the holiday spread to America where it is much revered--I can't say if this is true or not, but it is presented in several old wive's tales that the Jamestown settlers staged a fake Indian attack on the fort on April 1st, 1618. Captain John Smith, according to the tale, let them go without punishment, but did give them a warning and a demerit each.

And so the holiday has continued as a day of merry-making for years and years. May it never die out, and may we never grow too old to enjoy a good prank or two!.....including this one. :D

Happy April Fool's, everyone!