“April 1st is the day upon which we are reminded of what we are the other three hundred and sixty-four days.” –Mark Twain
There’s been so much abuse of the truth, deception, and erosion of our trust in each other that April Fool’s Day feels a bit dicey. And yet, laughter is more than the best medicine. Laughter is life.
Here are some fun facts about April Fool’s and a handful of humorous tales. I hope they give you laugh, and some perspective, and help you feel that you belong.
April Fools
“The first of April, some do say,
is set apart for All Fool’s day,
but why the people call it so,
Nor I, nor they themselves do know.
But on this day people are sent
on purpose for pure merriment.”
Poor Robin’s Almanac (1760)
Transcript of April Fools
Hello, and welcome to Myth Matters, storytelling and conversation about mythology and why myth matters to your life today. I’m your host and personal mythologist Dr. Catherine Svehla. Wherever you may be in this wide, beautiful, crazy world of ours, you are part of this story circle.
And they like Oh, hey. Yeah, I’m in the middle of recording. Oh, yeah, I’m coming back. Okay. Well, so I got a question for you, though. Do you know why babies born on March 31st are the easiest to prank on April 1st. No, I don’t. Because they were born yesterday. Well, I sure walked inti that one. Yes, you did. Well, and speaking of walking, why was everyone tired on April 1st? Why was everyone tired? I don’t know, why? Because they just finished a 31 -ay March. Yeah, I’ll let you go. I’ll let you go.
And I have to tell you friends, Happy April Fool’s Day, and I feel like the joke must be on me because this is the third frickin time that I have recorded this for you. And who knows what is going on. But there is a trickster in my machine.
“The first of April, some do say,
is set apart for All Fool’s day,
but why the people call it so,
Nor I, nor they themselves do know.
But on this day people are sent
on purpose for pure merriment.”
Poor Robin’s Almanac (1760)
That’s from poor Robins, Almanac. 1760. And poor Robin is right. We don’t know the origins of April Fool’s Day. It has a very vague history. You can find some interesting speculations online but regardless, fools days are very popular around the world. Now it does feel a little strange to me this year as it has in the last few years, given all of the just colossal lying and toxic misinformation that has been passed around and eroded our trust in each other and in the concept of the truth. The lies about the Coronavirus, told by Trump and his cronies have cost several 100,000 lives here in the United States. And that is only one aspect of the cavalcade of suffering. So, I appreciate that some corporations and others with big platforms are keeping it very low key this year and respecting our collective sensitivity to deception for any reason.
But these things I’m talking about are crimes. They’re not tricks, or pranks. And the difference is a lack of serious consequence. That’s what makes it funny. And humor is the point, right? I think we could all use a few laughs So I’d like to tell you a little bit more about April Fool’s Day and share a few humorous stories.
In Scotland, April’s fools is called Huntingowk Day. Gwok is the word for the cuckoo bird. The cuckoo bird is a very opportunistic bird, who lays its eggs in the nests of other birds and so manages to palm the responsibility of parenthood off on other birds. Cuckoos are also called bastard birds and technically they are bastard birds, a bastard being someone without an identified father. And this word bastard is connected to simpletons and fools. And you know, being fatherless means not being brought up right, not being taught the ways of the world, at least in the West, where it is archetypally, the task of the Father.
Now in the Scottish tradition of Huntingowk, that involves sending people off on a fool’s errand. Specifically, someone would call a friend and ask him or her to carry a letter with an important request to a friend a mile or two away. Of course, the obliging friend would take the letter and make the trip.
And when they got to the recipients house, that person opens up the letter. And what it says in effect is, this is a gowk wink, wink. So ,send this person on to someone else. The person reads the letter and says, “oh, my goodness, oh, this is really important. Oh, I really wish I could help. But I can’t. Gee, would you mind taking this request over to so and so over there.” And of course, the friend wants to oblige and does this.
And this can go on and on with person after person being let in on the joke and sending the unsuspecting and increasingly tired, errand boy/girl, from place to place to place to place until finally someone either lets them in on the joke, or they figure it out. That is a fool’s errand.
Now, April Fool’s Day gives us many instances of people being fooled. Of course, we also have lots of stories about fools. For example, there is a little English story called “The 12 Men of Gotham.” Gotham is a place that shows up in a number of English tales as a place where, well, let’s just say the citizens aren’t too bright.
In this story, we have 12 Men of Gotham, who decide one day to go fishing. And they go down to a creek, and after standing around on the dry land for a while they venture a little ways into the water, and then they decide it’s time to go home. And they say to each other, “well, we have just done wonderfully, wading into the water. And I thank God that we’re all going to go home and that none of us has drowned.” Well, and then one said, “Well, actually, let’s make sure. Let’s make sure that 12 of us really did come out of the water.” And they counted themselves. And every single one of them counted 11.
“Oh, my goodness,” they said one to the other, “One of us has drowned.” And they went back to the brook where they’d been fishing. And they looked up and down, and up and down, and all around and they couldn’t find their drowned friend. They couldn’t find number 12. They were getting increasingly desperate and starting to grieve. And at this point, another man came down the road and saw them and heard them and he stopped and asked them, what was the trouble?
“Oh,” they said, “Today, we came down here to fish in the brook, the 12 of us, we all came together, and one of us has drowned.” And the man looked at them, and he said, “Well, count selves. “And one of them counted 1,2 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 and he didn’t count himself. “Hmm,” said the man. “What will you give me if I can find the 12th man?” “Oh, sir, “they said, “if you can do that, we will give you all the money we’ve got.” “Okay,” said the man. And he counted them 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12. And here there are 12 men. Oh, they were so happy. “Give me the money,” he said. “Well, God’s blessing on your heart” they said, as they handed it over. “Thank you for finding our dear friend. “
Now, we tend to look at stories and look around for lessons, and certainly there are stories about fools that contain lessons. But if we get too serious about that now, as if we can create an iconography of foolishness or some kind of index of errors that we will pledge to ourselves never to make, in order to avoid ever being the fool… Well, I think that is its own type of foolishness. One of the beautiful purposes of these stories is to provide the laugh. Now someone might be able to find a lesson in this next story that I’m going to tell you, and you’re welcome to try, but I’m not going to. It’s a Japanese tale called “Ribs, and Skins. “
The rector of a Buddhist temple tells his assistant that he feels like he’s getting too old for the duties of his office and should retire. And that he means to leave the care of the temple, in the hands of his assistant. Before retiring to his private chamber, he asks his assistant to be sure and let him know if anyone comes to visit the temple, and says, “If anyone comes and wants information about any matter, have them come to me.” Not long after this, a parishioner comes by to borrow an umbrella. And the assistant lends him a new one. And then he goes to the rector and tells him somebody came by and borrowed and umbrella.
“Well, you’ve done the wrong thing,” says the rector, “you ought to have said that you would have been very happy to comply with such a small request but unfortunately, the rector was walking out with it the other day, when at a place where four roads meet, a sudden gust of wind blew the skin to one side, and the ribs to the other. And well, now we have tied the ribs and the skin together in the middle and hung it from the ceiling. And well, that’s the state of our umbrella, something like that,” said the rector, “something with an air of truth about it, you know, that’s what you should have said.”
Shortly thereafter, another parishioner came by, and this one wanted to borrow a horse. The assistant said with great politeness, “Your request is a mere trifle, but honestly, the rector took it out with him a few days ago. And coming to the junction of four crossroads, a gust of wind blew the ribs to one side and the skin to another. And we’ve tied them together and hung them from the ceiling. So, I fear it would not suit your purpose.” “It’s a horse that I want,” said the man. “Precisely, precisely a horse, I’m aware of that,” said the assistant. And the man went off not a little bit perplexed, after which the assistant went to the rector and reported this new affair.
And the rector says, “You know, what I told you before, that was about an umbrella, not about a horse. So, see that wasn’t applicable. If anyone should come again to borrow a horse, what you should say is, I much regret that I cannot comply with your request. The fact is, we lately turned him out into the meadows, and he became very frolicsome, and dislocated his thigh, and he’s now lying covered with straw in a corner of the stable. Something like that,” said the rector, “something with an air of truth about it is what you should say.”
Well, a third parishioner comes by to invite the rector and his assistant to a feast at his house. “Well, for myself,” said the assistant, “I promise to come, but I fear it will not be convenient for the rector to accompany me.” “Oh,” said the man, “I guess he has some particular business on hand.” “No, not any particular business, “answered the assistant. “But the truth is, we lately turned him out to the meadow and he became very frisky, dislocated his thigh, and now lies in a corner of the stable, covered with straw.” “I’m talking about the rector, “said the parishioner. “Yes, yes, of course, the rector, I quite understand,” said the assistant. And the man went away not knowing what to make of such a strange account of the rector’s condition.
Well, this last incident put the rector into a total fury, and he cuffed his intended successor up the side of the head. “And when was I ever frisky!” he said.
And When was I ever frisky. Indeed, folk and fairy tales are often looked down on because they deal with relatively simple themes. But you know, folk and fairy tales, those are tales for ordinary people. And they’re often about ordinary people. They stay very close to the every day, and even in magical tales, in what’s called a wonder tale, where extraordinary things happen, one effect is to show us the amazing and the miraculous dimension in the mundane. They’re eye opening in that they show us what’s special about what’s already here. And there’s a certain intimacy in the space of a folk or a fairy tale, and in the relationships between the people, that’s often missing in the grander myths. If you want to find a story to laugh at, I suggest that you start with folk and fairy tales.
In these stories, the fundamentals of our lives, the material and our sensory experience of life is privileged. Laughing is a sensory experience that is considered sacred in fairy tales. Laughter, laughter means life. Laughter means life, and laughter signifies birth, and rebirth. In lots of fairy tales, the one who can make the prince or the princess laugh, is the hero, the one who is handsomely rewarded. Now, in Christian situations laughter is usually suppressed, and if it is expressed it is to express contempt or ridicule. In medieval Christian texts, for example, we’re told that it’s the devil who laughs. But outside of that paradigm, in the pagan traditions, it was believed that it was not only okay to laugh, but it was really important to laugh, especially at important life transitions, like birth, and death.
Now, I imagine laughing at the birth of a child seems fairly easy, that’s a celebratory event, but laughing at a funeral? Well, one scholar of folk and fairy tales, Vladimir Propp, he did really important work on the forms and themes of folk tales, and in a work titled, “Ritual Laughter in Folk Tales” he said the key to understanding this and many other beliefs about laughter, outside of the Christian paradigm, is the obvious— that the living can laugh, and the dead cannot. I wonder if we would pay more attention to what’s in front of us, if we would enjoy it more, and if we would spend less time and energy worrying about the future and postulating other conditions that bring us close to our vision of heaven, if we remembered that, if we remembered the gift of laughter, and if we unwrapped it a little bit more often.
Now, if you listen to this podcast regularly, you know that I have a penchant for Sufi stories. And I’d like to tell you one about a man who finds his teacher.
There once was a man in the Middle East and he was a merchant. When he was a young man, he had two major desires in life. One was to understand the world of spirituality and to learn deep spiritual truths. And the other was to make a lot of money. He was born poor. And he had lots of trouble because of that poverty. And so, he naturally wanted to have more money. And his desire for money was more pressing than his desire for spirituality. So, he went into business, and he became a very rich man. And when he was about 50 years old, he had lots of money. He realized that the experiences that he wanted were all things that money couldn’t buy. His desire for spirituality, which had been buried, reasserted itself. He decided it was time to go on his spiritual journey.
He called his children to him and said, “I want you to take care of the family matters and the business from now on, I’m going to take some of the money and go find a suitable place and build a small house and live in solitude, and gain spiritual wisdom.” He left, he found a place, he built a house there. And he began his practice, he started his search. But he didn’t know anything about cooking. So, he decided that he would hire a cook. A villager heard about this and came to him and said, “I’m a good cook. Hire me as your cook and I will only ask for food as my salary.” The merchant said, “Okay, that’s fine. That sounds good. But one thing, please, please make sure that you do not disturb me. Because I am here to focus on my spiritual quest.” The cook nodded in agreement. And the merchant studied and studied for seven years.
He studied for seven years and at the end, he was convinced that he needed the help of someone who had already done this. It was very clear to him that he needed to teacher, someone who had already walked down the path that he was looking for. And he had an idea about this teacher and what kind of person he was going to be, and he knew that, you know, teachers live in the desert, you know, place of revelation. So, he went to the desert, and he met many teachers. But he didn’t meet any that satisfied him. He had an image of this teacher in mind.
Finally, one day, he did find the man, you know, he had the right long, you know, long beard and the long robe and the beads and, and the very, very serious demeanor. This man looked very much like what the merchant had in mind. He bowed down to this holy man and said, “Oh, great one, please take me as your disciple.” The holy man said, “I haven’t ever had a student before, I will have to ask my teachers permission before I take you on as a student.” “Well, then please ask him for his permission, oh great, sir, “said the merchant. “Well, I will ask his permission,” said the holy man, “but I haven’t seen him for seven years and so first, I’m going to have to find him. And then I can only take you as my disciple if he says yes. So, you’ll have to wait until I find him and I get his permission.”
“Oh, it’s going to take you many days to find him if you search all alone,” said the merchant. “Please, please allow me to assist you in searching for him.” “All right,” said the holy man. “What does he look like?” asked the merchant. “Well, he’s short and slim, and he generally does not wear upper garments on his body. And he’s a very good cook,” said the holy man. Huh? “Would you please describe him again, sir?” asked the surprised merchant. The holy man described his master in more detail.
“Would you please come to my house,” said the merchant, “because that sounds like my cook. “So, they went back to the man’s house and entered the living room and the kitchen door was open and the cook came out with a towel on his shoulder. The holy man with the long beard fell on the floor and bowed in front of the cook. “Master, were you here all this time?” asked the holy man. “Yes, I was cooking for this man, “replied the cook. “But this man is still looking for a teacher,” said the holy man. “Yes, it took me seven years to make him realize he needed a teacher,” said the cook. “So now what?” asked the holy man. “Now you teach him. I have other work to do” said the great master, and he walked away.
I guess that suggests yet another form of foolishness, doesn’t it? Overestimating what you know, and maybe relying too much on your expectations. You know, Mark Twain said “April 1st is the day upon which we are reminded of what we are the other three hundred and sixty-four days.” A certain amount of foolishness seems to be our condition. Mark Twain himself was the victim of an April Fool’s prank that made it into the news, and you can find it in newspaper accounts and things that he wrote, that Twain wrote, back in 1885. Apparently, as Twain got famous, he started getting requests for his autograph. And he really despised these requests. He thought the whole thing was kind of ridiculous.
So, on April Fool’s Day in 1885, a good friend of his reached out to a bunch of mutual friends. And then they reached out to other mutual friends. And on April 1st, when Mark Twain’s mail was delivered, he had a huge pile of letters. Huge pile of letters, far more than he normally got. When he started opening them, one by one, they were requests for autographs. Some of them were really quite humorous. I don’t know how many he had to read before he realized that he had been the victim of some April Fool’s humor. But John Hay, for example, writes from Cleveland that he wants Mark Twain to take an hour or two, you know, of his spare time and copy out a few 100 lines from some of his stories.
Thomas Knox contacted Twain to say that he had a royal commission from the King of Siam, for autographs for the king’s 258 children. And Knox goes on to suggest that since the family is always growing, it might be best if Twain would go ahead and send 300. Frank Jenkins wanted to secure enough Clemens autographs to start his seven daughters out as autograph fiends. And Marshall Kenny, of Hartford, asked that Twain put his autograph at the bottom of a check. I wouldn’t mind getting one of those autographs too.
Laughter. It’s a simple pleasure, isn’t it, my friends, that connects us to the joy of being alive. Where there are simple tricks, where no one’s hurt, nothing is bruised, except maybe the ego for few minutes. Well, it reminds us not to take ourselves too seriously. It reminds us how great it is to be alive.
And that’s it for me, Catherine Svehla and Myth Matters for this week. Feel free to contact me if you have questions or comments about today’s program. If you’re new to Myth Matters, I invite you to head over to the Mythic Mojo website, where you will find information about the podcast and a variety of ways to subscribe. You can listen to Myth Matters on your favorite podcast platform.
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Happy spring, wherever you are. I hope that good energies, new energies of rebirth and inspiration are flowing in your direction. Thank you so much for listening. Until next time, happy mythmaking and keep the mystery in your life.
