Let’s say that the grass is lush and green, and the ground is damp and fertile – in 30 minutes, how many worms could you catch?
One? Five?
How about 567?
Well, that’s what it would require to take the record from Sophie Smith (UK), who claimed the title for the most worms charmed at the 2009 World Worm Charming Championships in Willaston, England at the impressive age of 10 years old.
Despite its mythical-sounding name, worm charming – sometimes known as worm grunting, fiddling, or rooping – is a surprisingly old skill, used by fishermen to lure live worms out of the ground to use as bait.
The general method is to create vibrations atop damp soil, spurring the worms to shoot out of holes and into the unsuspecting clutches of their new handlers. Scientific research revealed that charming replicates the sound of the worm’s natural predator, the mole, causing them to “run” out of the soil at surprisingly quick speeds.
Traditional techniques in the USA involved using two wooden sticks, one plunged into the soil, and one scraped against the side of the other, to create short bursts of sound that prompt the worms out of the grass – though in the UK, worm charmers tend to twist a metal gardening fork to replicate the same effect.
Afterwards, the worms are either used as bait – or, they’re returned back to the ground.
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