Wintereise cartoon

Next time you want a mass of worms to come wriggling up out of the earth ---and who doesn't ---you can do it without even getting your hands dirty, using a technique called "worm grunting" or "worm charming." Basically what you're doing is trying to fool the worms into coming to the surface, which seems a bit unsportsmanlike if you ask me. You send a vibration into the ground to make them think there's a mole digging nearby, or that it's raining. You can do this in any number of ways--like driving a stake into the ground and then rubbing it with a piece of metal or hitting it with a stick. Another way is to repeatedly pat the ground with your feet, as demonstrated by this father, (with some lovely British accent) and his son in this video. 

If you're fishing and need bait, that's one thing. But leave it to humans to find reasons to torment worms that are just minding their own business, and make a game out of it.  Yes, in Cheshire England they hold the "World Worm Charming Championships," where contestants are given a 3 x 3 square of land to try and "charm" worms to the top. These people go nuts for 30 minutes, beating the earth like deranged monkeys, using everything from pitchforks to drums, or even trying to impel the worms with didgeridoos or saxophones. I admit it looks kind of fun, actually, though also a little demented. 

Imagine being one of the judges and having to count all those worms. The winners of the 2024 championship got over 100 worms! 

And what do they do with all those poor tricked worms? Hopefully some are released and can wiggle quietly back to what they were doing. It seems the worms remember all the harassment from the previous year, and move to the other side of the field to avoid being "charmed" again. Go worms!!