The Devil's After Your Blackberry Bush
Michaelmas Day, brambles and creepy flies
What are the brambles up to where you live right now? They’ve been ‘on the way out’ for a while here in Kent, but seeing as there are hundreds of different species in the UK, and the weather has been all over the shop, they may still be ripe for picking where you are. Around this time of year there’s always a moment on a walk where I try to remember that thing I’ve heard about the Devil and blackberries and turn to Google, or the nearest book that looks like it’ll contain such information to jog my memory. Luckily, I recently bought myself a copy of Telling the Seasons by Martin Maudsley, which I was pleased to find contained info on this very thing:
“According to widely observed folklore, the Devil spits (some say urinates) over unpicked blackberries on Michaelmas Day, rendering them unfit for human consumption after then. According to legend, when the Devil was expelled from heaven by St Michael, he landed on Earth among a painful patch of brambles. Since then, in his resentment towards both plant and saint, he spitefully despoils the blackberries on Michaelmas Day [29th September] each year. However, many people choose to follow Old Michaelmas Day as the annual eat-by-date (10th October), allowing an extra eleven days of picking from the purple patch!”
In conclusion, if you care about inadvertently eating Devil spit or piss, your days of plucking blackberries straight from the bush are numbered, so make the most of this year’s blackberry season while it lasts. Personally, I’m not too fussed about supposed Devilish bodily fluids, but it turns out there’s a slightly more realistic reason not to keep eating blackberries after mid-October: flesh flies. These beasties do actually spit on blackberries, apparently from mid-October in the UK, making them go all squishy. I did some further research on flesh flies which, I’ll be honest, I do not recommend, unless you want to be put off eating any soft fruit for the rest of your life. The natural world is incredible, and endlessly fascinating, but sometimes it really is just icky. Much ickier than the Devil’s spit or piss could ever be
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