Abstract
April 1. ALL FOOLS' DAY.—The custom of sending anyone on a fruitless errand and consequently exposing them to ridicule, sometimes erroneously stated to be confined to England, though it occurs also in Continental countries, especially in France, Germany, and Sweden, has been variously explained as a survival of Roman festivals on which special licence prevailed, as a memory of the mockery of Christ by the Jews, or even as a memorial of the bootless errand of the first dove sent from the Ark by Noah. An etymology of 1656 explains the French phrase for April Fool poisso? d'Awil—as a corruption of Passion, connecting it with the manner in which Christ was sent from authority to authority before the crucifixion. The custom may be connected with the festival of the vernal equinox in the Celtic year, and it has been compared to the festival of that date in India which is traced to the ancient Persian calendar.
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Calendar of Customs and Festivals. Nature 121, 520 (1928). https://doi.org/10.1038/121520a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/121520a0