April fool

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Ha, ha, ha… April first again, which explains why I’ve just taken a sip of coffee that tastes like seawater and bitten into a sandwich with a ham and toothpaste filling.

Oh how I love my teenage daughter’s sense of humour. Last year she removed the battery from my mobile phone – ha ha - and the year before she hid my car keys (for two hours) - and it seems she’s getting more inventive as she gets older.

All fools day – what fun!

In the early sixteenth century there was a belief that the ‘April Fool’, or ‘Aypril Foel’ as they called him, was a spirit who would visit the unwary and foolhardy on the first day of April. He was a little like the ‘Easter Bunny’ or the ‘Tooth Fairy’, a magical being who only appeared for a single day on April the first. He was something of a shady character and there was a belief that he was responsible for all manner of mischief, some light-hearted and some deeply dark.

Lunatics were often described as having been ‘Touched by the Fool’ - as were simpletons, unmarried mothers, bastards, single women, cuckolded men, hermits… in fact just about anybody who was slightly different to Mister Jack Normal.

The tradition of playing tricks on others came about wholly as a way to ward off the attention of the ‘April Fool’. This was called ‘Shrugging the Mark’. The idea was to trick your neighbour with some wilful prank, thus deflecting the attention of the Fool away from yourself and ‘Shrugging the Mark of the Fool’.

As the morning of ‘All Fools’ went by people became desperate to deflect the evil away from themselves and towards somebody else, preferably someone they didn’t like. But soon, as the clock ticked on towards midday, anyone would do – friend, cousin, father, wife, child – anybody and with any trick that could ‘Shrug the Fool’.

For those unfortunates who didn’t manage to trick someone before midday then the ‘Mark of the Fool’ would be bestowed upon them and at some time between ‘All Fools’ and ‘All Hallows’ in October, the ‘Fool’ would leave his ‘Mark’ on them.

For some living with the threat of the ‘Mark’ for seven long months was too much - many lost their minds, others drowned or hanged themselves, most turned to drink , whilst others simply ran away and were never seen again.

For the few that managed to get past ‘All Hallows’ without going mad, getting pregnant, being cuckolded, developing Alzheimer’s, or simply needing to be alone, then they would be safe until the next April first – when the ritual began again.

How very lucky for them? Maybe not - often those that survived three ‘marks’ without harm would be branded a witch and shunned or hounded from the village.

This belief continued well into the late eighteenth century and the ‘April Fool’ was a major character in the roving ‘Mummers’ players that toured the countryside from All Fools Day to May Day each year. The April Fool was instantly recognisable by his grey tailcoat, long pointed hat and the large pigs bladder - filled with lunatic’s urine - that he carried, splashing anyone who got in his way… thus marking them.

In 1787 one Noah Trueworthy of Devizes wrote thus:

‘On the stroke of twelfth did the Foole leapth into the croud crying and wailing hif heade and began a’poking and a’grabbing at the breafths and bootocks of the toun wenches and a’kickin in the cods of the knaves. With a greate cry did he a’start to fling around the piff of the lunatice overe bothe young and olde alike making them all frenzied and a'feared. And as foretold did many in the croud become afflicteth with the ague of the brain afore All Hallowf Eve.’

So - salty coffee and a toothpaste sandwich, perhaps I got off lightly. But I did have to pay by credit card at the services for a coffee because the two tenners that were in my wallet last night seemed to have magically turned into newspaper.

Perhaps it was the ‘Aypril Foel’.

I wonder what my daughter will say to her music teacher this afternoon when she opens her guitar case and finds that her instrument has no strings?

Don’t worry – she’ll get me back double next year.