篇一：愚人节的由来
愚人节的由来
April Fool's Day
愚人节 - 愚人节的由来
While popular in the U.S., the April Fool's Day tradition is even more prevalent in European countries, such as France and Great Britain. Although the roots of the traditional trickings are unclear, the French and the British both have claims on the origin of the celebration. 愚人节的习俗在美国是很流行的,在欧洲国家如法国和英国就更是如此了. 虽然这种愚弄人习俗的起源不甚清楚,但法国人和英国人却都声称这种庆祝活动是由他们开始的.
One theory holds that the first April Fool's Day was on April 1 of the year when King of France instituted the new calendar. This new system placed the day that had formerly been the first day of a new year on April
1. Many people were reluctant to adjust to the new calendar and continued to celebrateNew Year's Day on what had become the first day of April. Thus, they become the first April fools. Others began to give gag gifts on the day to mock the foolishness of those who continued to celebratethe new year on April 1.
有一种说法是,第一个愚人节始于法国新历法实行那年的4月1日,在这一天法国 国王宣布实行新历法.这种新历法将过去的新的一年第一天定在4月1日.很多人却不愿意按新的历法行事,还继续在 根据新的历法已经是4月的第一天庆祝新年,于是他们就成了第一批愚人.另一些人开始在这一天送恶作剧的礼物来 取笑那些继续在4月1日庆祝新年的人.
An English story about the day, however, holds that it began sometime during the 1200s. At the time, King John of England was in the habit of making a road out of nearly every path he walked regularly. The citizens of one particular farm village were aware of this. To avoid having their green meadows and pastures disturbed with one of the king's roads, they built a fence that prevented the king from walking through their
countryside. The king sent a group of messengers to inform the villagers that they must remove the barrier. Upon hearing that the king was planning to do this, however, the villagers developed a plan of their own. When community of lunatics, with people behaving in a bizarre manner, throwing things and running around wildly. The messengers, alarmed at what they had found, reported to King John that these people were so mad as to be beyond punishment. So, the villagers saved their farmland by tricking the King.In Great Britain, tradition only allows April Fool's tricks from
midnight to noon on April 1. Those who try to play tricks in the afternoon become the fools themselves.
关于这一天,英国的一个故事则说它是始于13世纪的某一天.那时,英格兰的 约翰国王习惯于将他经常走的几乎每一条小道都修成一条路.有一个乡村的居民知道了这个情况.为了保护他们 绿色的草地和牧场免受国王修路所造成的破坏,他们修了一道篱笆来阻挡国王在他们的乡间穿行.国王派了一队 使者去通报村民们必须拆除障碍.在听到国王打算这么做时,村民们也想出了自己的办法.当使者到达时,他们 看到这儿的人像一群疯子似的,样子怪诞,乱扔东西,四下疯跑.使者们惊讶于他们看到的情景,向约翰国王报告说, 这些人疯得厉害根本没法处罚.村民们就这样骗过了国王,保护了自己的农田.在英国,按习俗在4月1日只允许从半夜 到中午的这段时间可以搞愚人的恶作剧,到下午还这么做的人就成了愚人了.
另：
April Fools' Day is a day to play jokes on others, No one knows how this holiday began but people think it first started in France.
In the 16 th century, people celebrated New Year's Day from March 25 to April 1. In the mid—1560s King Charles IX changed it from March 25 to January 1. But some people still celebrated in on April 1, so others called them April Fools.
Each country celebrates April Fools' Day differently. In France, people call the April Fools “April Fish”. They tape a paper fish to their friends' backs to fool them. When he or she finds this , they shout “April Fish!”
In England, people play jokes only in the morning. You are a “noodle” if someone fools you. In Scotland, April Fools' Day is 48 hours long. They call an April Fool “April Gowk”. Gowk is another name for a cuckoo bird.In the America, people play small jokes on their friends and any other people on the first of Aprol. They may point down to your shoe and say, “ Your shoelace is untied.” If you believe them and look down to see, you are an April Fool then.
篇二：April Fools Day 愚人节的来历
April Fools DayApril begins with a day of fun and jokes - April Fool's Day. No one really knows when this custom began but it has been kept for hundreds of years.
It is commonly believed that that April Fool came about bease of the change of calendars. In 1582, Pope Gregory introduced a new calendar called the Gregorian calendar which is the calendar we still use today.
The new calendar was introduced because the old calendar, called the Julian calendar, was ahead by ten days because each year was a little too long. Gregory moved the new calendar forward by ten days.
Britain didn’t accept the new calendar until 1752.
In the Julian calendar, the old calendar, New Year was celebrated from March 25th to April 1st. The first day of the Gregorian calendar is January 1st.
In France, people were forgetful and other people refused to accept the new calendar, so they still celebrated New Year on
April 1st. Other people would play tricks on them and call them April Fools.
April fooling became popular in England and Scotland during the 1700s.
The First of April, some do say
Is set apart for All Fools Day;
But why the people call it so,
Not I, nor they themselves do know.
April Fool jokes usually involve pursuading someone to do
something silly, like looking for hen's teeth, striped paint, a long weight, a left-handed screwdriver or some other non-existent thing.
However, you can only play April Fools on people before midday –at midday the fun must stop or the trickster is told:
'April Fool's Day is past and gone,
Your're the fool and I am none.'
One of the great April Fool jokes took place on April
1st, 1957. The BBC TV programme Panorama did a
documentary on 'spaghetti farmers' growing
'spaghetti trees.' The hoax Panorama programme featured a family from Ticino in Switzerland carrying out their annual
spaghetti harvest. It showed women carefully plucking strands of spaghetti from a tree and laying them in the sun to dry.
The joke was an enormous success. Hundreds of people believed there was such things as spaghetti trees. Soon after the
broadcast ended, the BBC began to receive hundreds of calls from puzzled viewers. Did spaghetti really grow on trees, they wanted to know. Others were eager to learn how they could grow their own spaghetti tree. To this the BBC reportedly replied that they
should "place a sprig of spaghetti in a tin of tomato sauce and hope for the best." :)
篇三：愚人节的来历 The origin of April Fool's Day
愚人节的来历 The origin of April Fool's Day
As it was called years ago, All Fools' Day is observed in many countries
around the world. The origin of April Fool's Day remains clouded in obscurity. But what is clear is that the tradition of a day devoted to foolery had ancient roots. As we look back in time, many ancient predecessors of April Fool's Day are found.
A French legendary
The most widespread theory about the origin of April Fool's Day links the Gregorian calendar reform.
In 1582 France became the first country to switch from the Julian to the
Gregorian calendar. This meant that the beginning of the year was moved from the end of March to January 1. If someone failed to keep up with the change and continued to celebrate the New Year between March 25th and April 1st, various jokes would be played on him. This story might explain why April 1st specifically became the date of the modern holiday.
Mythological roots
There have been quite a few attempts to provide mythological explanations for the rise of April Fool's Day.
One story dates back to Roman mythology, particularly the myth of Ceres (the Goddess of grain and the harvest) and Proserpina. In Roman mythology Pluto, the God of the Dead, abducted Proserpina and brought her to live with him in the underworld. Proserpina called out to her mother Ceres for help, but Ceres, who could only hear the echo of her daughter's voice, searched in vain for Proserpina. The fruitless search of Ceres for her daughter was
commemmorated during the Roman festival of Cerealia and believed by some to have been the mythological antecedent of the fool's errands popular on April 1st.
British folklore linked April Fool's Day to the town of Gotham. According to the legend, it was traditional in the 13th century for any road that the King travelled over to become public property. People in Gotham didn't want to lose their
main road and spread a false story to stop the King. A messenger was sent to Gotham after King John learned the people's trick. But when the messenger arrived in Gotham he found the town was full of lunatics who were engaged in foolish activities such as drowning fish or attempting to cage birds in roofless fences. The King fell for the hoax and declared the town too foolish to warrant punishment. And ever since then, April Fool's Day has supposedly
commemmorated their trickery.
Anthropological explanations
Anthropologists and cultural historians provide their own explanations for the rise of April Fool's Day. According to them,
Spring is the time of year when the weather becomes fickle, as if Nature is playing tricks on man, and festivals occurring during the Spring traditionally mirrored this sense of whimsy and surprise. They often involved temporary inversions of the social order. Normal behavior no longer governed during the brief moment of transition as the old world died and the new cycle of seasons was born. Practical jokes,trickery, and the turning upside down of status expectations were all allowed.
In addition,the linkage between April Foolery and the Springtime is seen in
another story that traces the origin of the custom back to the abundance of fish to be found in French streams during early April when the young fish had just hatched. These young fish were easy to fool with a hook and lure. Therefore, the French called them 'Poisson d'Avril' or 'April Fish.' Soon it became
customary to fool people on April 1, as a way of celebrating the abundance of foolish fish.