Mind those purple fur stains, Piggies! It’s Blackberry Picking & Folklore Day! 🐹 💜 💜 💜 🫐 👿 🥕

By whatever name you prefer for these delicious berries — Blackberry, Bramble, Bumble-Kite, Bramble-Kite, Bly, Brummel, Brameberry, Scaldhead, or Brambleberry — September 12 is a traditional day for gathering (and, naturally, eating) blackberries!

If the piggies are heading out with a basket — or perhaps in the basket — to hunt for berries and blackberry leaves, folklore says to finish the gathering before “Devil’s Spit Day,” October 11, also known as Old Michaelmas Day.

According to an old British legend, when St. Michael cast Lucifer out of Heaven, the Devil came hurtling down from the skies and landed — most unfortunately for him — in a prickly blackberry bush! 😈 🌿

Furious at his rather thorny landing, he cursed the blackberries, scorched them with his fiery breath, stamped on them, and spat on them. Some versions of the story say he did something even less appetizing to them, but this is a respectable guinea pig page and we shall leave it there. 😂

And so, tradition warned that after Old Michaelmas Day, the remaining blackberries were spoiled and should no longer be eaten.

The piggies see only one sensible solution:

Eat the blackberries before the Devil gets to them.

Bad Devil! BAD! 👿 There's still time, Piggies!

Wheek! Wheek!