281. What was the origin of “April Fool”?
How the custom of making fools on the first of April arose is not certainly known, but there are several accounts of its origin, viz.:—
1. It is, perhaps, a travesty of the sending hither and thither of the Saviour from Annas to Caiaphas, and from Pilate to Herod, because during the Middle Ages this scene in Christ’s life was made the subject of a miracle play at Easter, which occurs in the month of April.
2. As March 25 used to be New-Year’s Day, April 1 was its octave, when its festivities culminated and ended.
3. There is a tradition among the Jews that it arose from the fact that Noah sent out the dove on the first of the month corresponding to our April, before the water had abated. To perpetuate the memory of the great deliverance of Noah and his family, it was customary on this anniversary to punish persons who had forgotten the remarkable circumstance connected with the date, by sending them on some bootless errand, similar to that on which the patriarch sent the luckless bird from the window of the ark.
4. The custom refers to the uncertainty of the weather at this period.
5. It is a relic of some old heathen festival; and it is curious that the Hindoos practise similar tricks on the 31st of March, when they hold what is called the Huli Festival.
The custom, whatever is its origin, appears to be universal throughout Europe. In France the person imposed upon is called un poisson d’Avril (an April fish). In England and the United States such a person is called an April fool; in Scotland, a gowk.
282. What was the origin of the phrase “getting into a scrape”?
“The deer are addicted, at certain seasons, to dig up the land with their fore-feet, in holes, to the depth of a foot, or even half a yard. These are called ‘scrapes.’ To tumble into one of these is sometimes done at the cost of a broken leg; hence a man who finds himself in an unpleasant position, from which extrication is difficult, is said to have ‘got into a scrape.’”