April Foolishness in Newfoundland
April 1st has been April Fools’ Day (or All Fools’ Day) for a long time; so long in fact, no one is quite sure where the tradition came from. The day seems to have been marked in Britain since the early 1700s at least, and as the British settled Newfoundland, April Fools’ Day became established on the island, too.
For the most part, many of the Newfoundland customs of April Fools’ Day are like those elsewhere. That is, people attempt to play tricks and pranks on one another.
Up the Ladder, Down the Tree
Historically, it was only acceptable to play tricks before noon. People trying to play jokes after 12pm were mocked and considered fools themselves for not realizing the time for tricks had passed.
According to the Encyclopedia of Newfoundland and Labrador, afternoon tricksters were admonished in verse:
April-fool is gone a-past
You're the biggest fool at last
Up the ladder
Down the tree
You're a bigger fool than me.
It’s a pleasing little burn, really… I like the imagery.
‘Up the ladder, down the tree.’ is fun to picture, plus it’s sort of like: “You set yourself above me so easily, now get ready for an clumsy tumble back down!’
Happy Foolsoweentine’s Day?
Speaking of clumsy, there’s something about April Fools’ Day that made people to awkwardly sandwich holiday customs together.
Like mar falten, for example.
Mar Falten
Mar falten is an odd Newfoundland expression connected to Valentine’s Day. It’s possibly a corruption of “Mornin’ Valentine.”
On the morning of February 14th, some Newfoundlanders play a game of trying to be the first person, in any interaction, to bid the other “Mar falten.”
Being the first to say “mar falten” sort of meant you ‘got’ the other person. It was a game of bragging rights, for some; for others it was a chance to earn a Valentine’s treat.
In any case, like April 1st tricks, all “mar falten-ing” was supposed to be done by noon… and maybe that’s why, for some Newfoundlanders, mar falten migrated to April first… albeit with a bit of a twist.
‘Mar falten’ was sometimes said on April 1st in response to a successful trick. Instead of a jokester crying ‘Gotcha!’ or ‘April Fool!” They might say “Mar falten!” to let the person know they’d been had.
I suppose, in it’s Valentine’s Day game form, ‘mar falten’ had become a sort of “victory cry” and, in that regard, I guess it fits April Fools’ too.
Twisting the holidays a bit further, in some Newfoundland communities the morning of April 1st saw children go house-to-house knocking on doors saying, “Mar falten!”
In response they expected to receive a small treat. If no treat was offered a trick might be played.
Except for the lack of costumes, and the fact the visits happened in the morning, it sounds a lot Halloween.
Halloween with a Valentine’s Day greeting.
Halloween with a Valentine’s Day greeting in April.
I don’t know.
Sometimes when I think about customs from Newfoundland’s past I feel sorry that I missed out on them.
Foolsoweentine’s Day is not one of them.
Not that I’m completely against a good-natured prank. Some of the pranks from yester-year are kinda cute really.
Fruit-Salts and Chamber Pots
I came across an amusing prank in one of the entries in the Dictionary of Newfoundland English. It recorded as part of the definition for the word ‘fuzz.’ It caught my attention because it was collected in Happy Adventure, my home community.
The informant (a Mr. E. Turner) recalled:
“I knowed a feller put a bottle o' Eno's fruit-salts in the chamber upstairs, you know, where there's no toilet, see. When they'd ... in the chamber it would all go to fuzz, sure.”
It sounds funny to me. That’s probably because I’m not the one it happened to… or the one who had to clean it up.
I also came across a less messy prank in the Dictionary — who knew expanding your vocabulary could also help your pranking game?
Finding a Press Pile Compass
Unknown author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
The Dictionary of Newfoundland English referenced a sort of fool’s errand type prank.
Apparently, some people used to like to prank novices when they were making fish (salting and drying cod). It was common practice to pile and press the dried cod. Sometimes, they’d send the greenest worker in search of a press pile compass — a fictional tool supposed to help with the task.
The joke was an open secret among workers.
One fellow would send the innocent worker to his neighbour’s stage to borrow a press pile compass. The neighbour would say,”No b’y, I’ve only got one and I’m using it. Go up the cove and check with Uncle John, he might have a spare.”
Uncle John would send him to another stage and the quest would continue until the novice wised up… or quit out of exhaustion.
It seems like a fun joke that the whole community (minus one person, of course) could enjoy.
Window Tapping
Another old prank, that fewer people in the community probably appreciated, was called window tapping.
Window-tapping, like the name suggests was a trick whereby people made a mysterious tapping noise against a window with the goal of having the people inside think they were being visited by a ghost.
One strategy was to find a long piece of black sewing cotton, a large pin and a button. Pieced together, the device was hard to see in the dark but made a peculiar, ghostly tapping sound when brushed against a window.
I can imagine, in a world lit only by oil lamp, it was a creepy trick.
Truthfully, I think it would be pretty creepy today too.
Enjoying April First
Previous generations of Newfoundlanders seemed to find some genuine fun in pranks.
I envy them, I suppose, but I think I’m the sort of guy who’d have spent my day looking for a press pile compass and my night fretting about the strange tapping outside my window.
Which is to say, I’m more frequently the pranked than the pranker.
I try to take it in good humour though.
If you have any stories of memorable tricks or pranks from NL’s past (connected to April 1st or not), I’d love to hear about them.
Feel free to drop them in the comments.
-
April Fools’ Day, Encyclopedia of Newfoundland and Labrador
Press Pile Compass, DNE Word Slips.
Fuzz, DNE Word Slip
April Fool is Past and Gone, NRICH
April Fools’ Tradition, History
