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Fools and Tails

This day, 1st April, reminds us of the silly games that both children and adults once played on each other the length of Scotland. Known as ‘Gowk’s Day’ in Scots, it was common to send people on silly errands just for the amusement factor and we called such an errand in Scots ‘hunt the gowk’. The person who was sent on such a silly errand was known as a ‘huntiegowk’. To do this to a person was to ‘magowk’ them. The day after – 2 April – was known in Scots as ‘Tailie Day’ because children used to affix a paper tail to an unsuspecting person, and the tail often had a message written on it. There are still people today in certain areas who know the Scots names, but the English ‘April Fool’ has since become more widespread.