A Yorkshire friend mentions another way in which St. Agnes’ Fast might be broken, and the success of the charm utterly ruined—that is, by a kiss; and it was a constant trick of the young wags to come unawares upon a girl who was believed to be keeping St. Agnes’ Fast, and break her fast by a salute.
We learn from the Wilkie MS. that the second of April shares on the Borders the character which the first bears all England over. There are two April-fool days there, or, as they call them, “gowk days.” Unsuspecting people are then sent on bootless errands, and ridiculed for their pains. One such day has, I believe, usually sufficed us in England. To the full observance of this day in my native city, at the time of my boyhood, I can bear witness; having been duly sent, with many another urchin, to the chemist for a pennyworth of oil of hazel, and received it in another way than I looked for, from the stout hazel stick hidden behind the shopman’s counter. Sometimes the victim is instructed to ask for “strap oil.” This custom extends to Germany: in Berlin “crab’s blood” or “gnat’s fat” are the articles sent for.
But “hunting the gowk” is more fully carried out by sending the victim from place to place with a letter, in which the following couplet was written:
The first and second of Aprile,
Hound the gowk another mile.
I need hardly add that gowk is a local name for the cuckoo, of which bird our ancestors said:
In April
He opes his bill.
Now, according to White of Selborne, the 7th of April is the earliest day for hearing the cuckoo, the 26th the latest. Therefore, before the change of style, the 1st and 2nd of the month, now the 12th and 13th, were days on which it would probably be heard for the first time. In Sussex, April 14 is called “first cuckoo day,” and is greeted with these couplets:
