April Fools Day Origins
Posted: Mon Apr 01, 2019 9:16 am
April Fools Day Origins
Lots of people do silly things for April fools day, and some of them fall short and some of them are darn funny.
But most people don’t know the origin of the day. It was originally April fuels day. This started in medieval Europe. The peasants on the laird’s estates had to pay for the sticks and wood that they picked up in the forest for burning in their pitiful hovels. This caused a lot of sneaking little bits home when no one was looking. And the laird wasn’t collecting his “taxes” and it wasn’t very efficient to have the Knights running around the forest to police the picking up of twigs, and their horses made deep tracks that helped turn things into quagmires.
So one of the lairds, his name was Hughs d’Atslaffin (he was a Poltroon on his mother’s side) decided that if, on the first of April, all the peasants were allowed to go and collect all the faggots they could and stockpile them free gratis, and he would collect taxes all the other days.
So this was duly put in place and if you were caught trying to smuggle faggots into the closet any other day, the penalty was death. And this worked out fairly well. And the word spread to other feudal lairds, and the custom became established.
Then with the industrial revolution and the new fuel of coal, then oil and gas so we could get more global warming, the custom died out. But people still remembered April Fuels Day. Over time, it got changed due to slurring of words over too many flagons of mead, and someone would say “Its fuel, you fool” and its now known as April Fool’s Day. And instead of collecting sticks, we play tricks.
Just sort of an interesting story that not too many people know, that I thought I would pass along. I am surprised Exxon or someone hasn’t picked up on it and used it for commercial purposes.
Lots of people do silly things for April fools day, and some of them fall short and some of them are darn funny.
But most people don’t know the origin of the day. It was originally April fuels day. This started in medieval Europe. The peasants on the laird’s estates had to pay for the sticks and wood that they picked up in the forest for burning in their pitiful hovels. This caused a lot of sneaking little bits home when no one was looking. And the laird wasn’t collecting his “taxes” and it wasn’t very efficient to have the Knights running around the forest to police the picking up of twigs, and their horses made deep tracks that helped turn things into quagmires.
So one of the lairds, his name was Hughs d’Atslaffin (he was a Poltroon on his mother’s side) decided that if, on the first of April, all the peasants were allowed to go and collect all the faggots they could and stockpile them free gratis, and he would collect taxes all the other days.
So this was duly put in place and if you were caught trying to smuggle faggots into the closet any other day, the penalty was death. And this worked out fairly well. And the word spread to other feudal lairds, and the custom became established.
Then with the industrial revolution and the new fuel of coal, then oil and gas so we could get more global warming, the custom died out. But people still remembered April Fuels Day. Over time, it got changed due to slurring of words over too many flagons of mead, and someone would say “Its fuel, you fool” and its now known as April Fool’s Day. And instead of collecting sticks, we play tricks.
Just sort of an interesting story that not too many people know, that I thought I would pass along. I am surprised Exxon or someone hasn’t picked up on it and used it for commercial purposes.
