after michaelmas

The Michaelmas daisies have been in flower for weeks, but that’s a poor excuse for having completely forgotten that it was Michaelmas – the Feast of St Michael and all Angels – on September 29th.

This post is dedicated to my mother who has reminded me of the story of the Archangel Michael casting the Devil from Heaven. Unlike Br’er Rabbit, it seems the Devil wasn’t born and bred in a briar patch, so he was not a happy bunny when he landed in among the brambles.

The first few versions of the legend that I find on line are all suitably demure and say that the Devil cursed the bushes and berries, or, at worst, that he spat on them. My mother, however, assures me that when she was a child she was told he peed on them.

And that explains why you shouldn’t eat blackberries after Michaelmas, even if you find some that look more appetising than the ones in the photo I took this morning: