April Fools Day (alternatively April Fools Day, sometimes All Fools Day) is celebrated on 1 April every year. 1 April is not a national holiday, but is widely recognized and celebrated in various countries as a day when people play practical jokes and hoaxes on each other called April fools. A ticket to Washing the Lions in London Precursors of April Fools Day include the Roman festival of Hilaria, held 25 March, and the Medieval Feast of Fools, held 28 December, still a day on which pranks are played in Spanish-speaking countries. In Chaucers Canterbury Tales (1392), the Nuns Priests Tale is set Syn March bigan thrity days and two. Modern scholars believe that there is a copying error in the extant manuscripts and that Chaucer actually wrote, Syn March was gon. Thus, the passage originally meant 32 days after April, i.e. 2 May, the anniversary of the engagement of King Richard II of England to Anne of Bohemia, which took place in 1381. Readers apparently misunderstood this line to mean March 32, i.e. 1 April. In Chaucers tale, the vain cock Chauntecleer is tricked by a fox. In 1508, French poet Eloy dAmerval referred to a poisson d’avril (April fool, literally April fish), a possible reference to the holiday. In 1539, Flemish poet Eduard de Dene wrote of a nobleman who sent his servants on foolish errands on 1 April. In 1686, John Aubrey referred to the holiday as Fools holy day, the first British reference. On 1 April 1698, several people were tricked into going to the Tower of London to see the Lions washed.
Posted on: Tue, 01 Apr 2014 23:31:29 +0000
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