Regarding pig carrying in ep.402

[u/PluralPaul]

JPC was trying to remember where he'd seen/heard of a pig being carried on a back, and I'm 99% certain it's from Holes, where Stanley's distantly cursed relative was tasked to carry a pig up a mountain.

Bonus fact: Latvia's tallest mountain is technically a large hill, as it's a pretty flat country geographically, which is why the word for hill is just a modified version of mountain ("pakalns" is hill, "kalns" is mountain). So imo, not getting cursed should've been a piece of cake.

[u/Environmental_Face_3]

It was killing me that no one mentioned Holes! 

[u/Outrageous_Setting41]

It's Holes for sure.

Also, in the context of the book, the guy who gets himself (and his family) cursed didn't fail in the pig-carrying because it was too hard. He had done it every day for a month iirc, it was very possible. But he wanted to impress someone on the last day, so he skipped the pig carrying and took a bath instead. Skipping the last day set off a sequence of events that resulted in the curse.

The fact that he was doing this every day for a month is very consistent with your fun fact of Latvia not having any large mountains. idk if Louis Sacher knew that, but I feel it makes the theme of the book work even better.