Sing a song of sixpence and keep warm, piggies! It's the Cold Days of Blackbird January! 🐹 💙 🤍 💙 ❄️ ❄️ ❄️ 🪶 🪶 🪶 🥕

"🎶 Sing a song of sixpence,
A pocket full of rye.
Four and twenty blackbirds
Baked in a pie.

When the pie was opened,
The birds began to sing.
Wasn't that a dainty dish
To set before the king?"

Treat your pigs and yourselves like royalty and keep warm!

The last days of January are considered some of the coldest in many countries, particularly in Italy, where they are known as I Giorni della Merla, the Days of the Blackbird.

A legend tells of a white bird and her chicks while trying to avoid the bitter January cold, spent three days curled up in warm chimney surrounded by soot and smoke. When the sun finally emerged brightly on February 1st, the birds reemerged but with feathers turned black and have remained that way ever since!

And while it's unlikely that blackbirds were commonly baked into pies, the tuneful "Sing a song of sixpence" nursery rhyme imagery likely stems from a form of entremet (a type of medieval dish meant more for entertainment and display than for eating) where live birds would be placed in a pie crust and fly out when the pie was cut open, creating a dramatic and entertaining spectacle for king and court!

Royalty and their amusements ... am I right?

Wheek! Wheek!