April 1st is Let the Herd Out Day (karja/laske/päev) in Estonia and that’s no joke. Laskma = to allow and to shoot. But please don’t shoot the herd. The lamba/kari or herd of sheep featured here belong to textile artist Anu Raud and live in Kääriku talu (farm) in Heimtali, Viljandimaa. Photo: Leida Lepik
Any kind of herd is a kari; but it also happens to mean a reef: laev jooksis karile, the ship ran aground. A herd of sheep is a lamba/KARI, not to be confused with lamba-/KARRI, which is lamb curry, or with lamba/karree, from the French carré d’agneau, which is a cut, or entire rack of lamb, that is cut perpendicularly to the spine including the ribs or chops – karbonaad(id).
April 1 is a day for playing tricks on your friends in Estonia too. It’s simply called esimene aprill; April first, and if you play a trick or tõmbad kedagi haneks, “pull / yank them, so they are a goose”, you yell “APRILL!” Tricking someone is also called tüssamine. If you were tricked, you could say: ma sain tüssata or mind peteti (I was fooled), or ma sain vastu pükse (I got (a slap) on the pants / backside). Or the aforementioned goose reference: mind tõmmati haneks.
To add more animals to the mix, tricking people on April 1 in French-speaking countries and areas is known as poisson d’avril or April fish (aprilli/kala) and the same, or pesce d’aprile in Italian. The joking includes attempting to attach a paper fish to the victim’s back without being noticed. Such fish feature prominently on many late 19th- to early 20th-century French April Fools’ Day postcards.
Esimesel aprillil my colleague rushed into our common kitchen at work and excitedly asked whether I’d seen the solar eclipse. I ran to the window and started looking around madly. Where was the sun, where?! I’d never want to miss a päikese/varjutus … “APRILL!”
Riina Kindlam,
Tallinn
