April Fool's Day!

April Fool!

 

 

Did anyone "April Fool" you today?

 

Well, no one did me...

 

But when I was small I used to fall for my Mom's "Look, it snowed!!"

 

every time...wishful thinking on my part!

 

(With the weird weather this year, it could well be true!) ~

 

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Here's something interesting, I think!



(I got this information here ~ learningfrenchcritic.com.)

 

In France, April
Fools’ Day is known as poisson d’avril, or the fish of
April.

Where we’re more
apt to employ whoopi cushions and plastic spiders, French youth have a different
tradition: schoolchildren will stick a paper fish on someone’s back, hoping not
to be discovered. (Using the old ‘kick me’ sign tactic of a pat on the back and
saying something along the lines of, ‘We’re such good friends!’ seems to be an
effective method.)

When the paper
fish is discovered, the perpetrator yells, “Poisson d’avril!“

April Fish!

April
Fools’ (or Fish)
Day is, in fact, a French tradition dating
back to the (at least) 16th Century. No one knows exactly how it began, though
there are several theories.

According to one
legend, until the 1564, the New Year was celebrated in April. The then-king of
France, Charles IX, made the rather arbitrary decision (as kings were wont to
do) to to set the New Year on January 1st. Okay, it wasn’t totally arbitrary, it
did have something to do with the days getting longer, but still. It was then
said that anyone who still celebrated the New Year on April 1st was a fool.
However, references to poisson d’avril have been cited as far
back as the 14th century, most notably in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales,
so this rather regal theory may be debunked.

The tradition
could also be associated with Lent, during which the consumption of meat is
forbidden. As fish was and is often consumed in its place, and as April 1st
falls near the end of Lent, people (perhaps driven a bit mad by over
consumption) began playing fish-related pranks. One such jest may was to offer
someone a fake fish. Falling for the prank made one a fool.

The beginning of
April also falls under the zodiac sign of the Pisces, the fish. Pisces is the twelfth and
final sign of the zodiac calendar, marking the end of the year and supporting
the first theory of a New Year being celebrated around that time.

 

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Here are some fun vintage postcards from around the turn of the (20th) century ~ ♥

 

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Pigs were good luck, too ~ like on many of the St. Patrick's Day cards ~ ;^)



I personally will never think of "April Fool's" the same way!



Have a great Tuesday, all!



Love,