What is the Scottish name for April Fools' Day?

The Scottish name for April Fools' Day is “Hunt the Gowk.”

The name is also written Huntigowk or Hunt the Gowk. In Scots, a gowk is a cuckoo and, by extension, a foolish person. The traditional prank involved sending someone on a pointless errand with a sealed message asking another person to help; the recipient would then send the victim onward with a similar message.

One traditional message reportedly read, “Dinna laugh, dinna smile. Hunt the gowk another mile.” The phrase captures the practical joke: the victim is made to “hunt” a fool or cuckoo from one destination to the next.

Scotland also had a related second-day custom called preen-tail day or tailie day. People attached paper tails to other people’s backs, sometimes with an unflattering note. Thus, Scottish observances differed from the English custom of simply calling someone an April fool, even though all belonged to the wider April 1 tradition.