These are some of the practical jokes of the Middle Ages, reported by the Museum of Hoaxes via Unlocked Wordhoard:
The notebook of Thomas Betson, a fifteenth-century monk at Syon Abbey in Middlesex, records his joke of hiding a beetle inside a hollowed-out apple. When the apple began to mysteriously rock back and forth people believed it to be possessed. Other manuscripts include instructions for more mischievous tricks, such as how to make beds itchy and meat appear wormy.
The Secretum Philosophorum, which was a kind of fourteenth-century guide to trickery, offered a recipe for magically transforming water into wine. The trick was to secretly drop pieces of bread into the water, after first soaking the bread pieces in dark wine and then drying them in the sun.
Magical defenses against trickery and dishonesty are also recorded. For instance, a magical method for forcing someone to tell the truth went like this: place the heart and left foot of a toad over a sleeping person’s mouth. When the sleeper awakes they will respond truthfully to whatever question they are asked. Unfortunately, user feedback for this spell was not recorded (though it sounds like something that could be usefully tried at home against an unsuspecting spouse or sibling… or maybe not).
The illustration is from a Brown University website on jesters
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