Bath at Christmas. Pigs are connected with Bath and the legend/myth of its ‘founder’ King Bladud who – as a Prince – contracted leprosy and lived as an outcast tending pigs. It’s no surprise that they caught the disease from him!
One day – while sitting on a Bath hillside and feeding the porkers acorns from the oak tree above them – the animals turned and rushed down the hill with their swine herdsman in hot pursuit.
Prince Bladud found them wallowing in hot steaming mud. Something they returned to do every day until he noticed their skin was healed. It then worked for the Prince too and he returned – cured of his leprosy and an outcast no more – to claim the kingdom and build a great city.
You have guessed it. The pigs had chanced upon Bath’s naturally heated thermal springs which continue to flow and help bring four and a quarter million day visitors to the city every year. It’s a great way of helping to keep our rates down too!
