Few folks find earthworms charming - except maybe 10-year-old boys who cut them in two and watch them writhe to see if both halves live (in fact both head and tail ends can regenerate, depending upon the species). But there are wizards who charm worms like Indian mystics charm snakes, and some of them practice their magic here and there around the Southeast and particularly on the Florida Panhandle.

If you search YouTube for "worm grunting" and "Tate’s Hell" (in Florida’s Apalachicola National Forest), you’ll find video of one of state’s best known worm charmers - more commonly called "grunters," "whisperers," or "fiddlers" - an enterprising professional named Gary Revell. A fourth-generation grunter who’s been at it for 50 years, much of that time with wife Audrey at his side, Gary is viewed by many as the world worm-whispering champ. The quaint Panhandle town of Sopchoppy is hosting its 20th annual Worm Gruntin’ Festival April 11. The schedule features a demonstration with Gary Revell as "Master Grunter," a "Gruntin’ Contest" for kids under 12, and live music throughout the day, culminating in the Worm Grunter’s Ball (for more info, visit wormgruntinfestival.com).

The point of the grunting is to lure earthworms out of the soil and collect them for sale to fishermen as live bait. The specific earthworm that collectors are seeking (out of thousands of known species) is the Diplocardia mississippiensis, which, for its characteristic pinkish hue and the profits it brings, is lovingly called "pink gold." Once a vibrant industry, before the proliferation of artificial lures, worm gathering is practiced today by a few veteran harvesters, who can collect thousands of the slithery critters in just a few hours - but it’s not easy.

The process involves pounding a 2-foot wooden "stob" into the dirt and vigorously rubbing a flat slab of metal (a piece of an old car leafspring or some other "roopin’ iron") back and forth over the exposed end, creating a grunting sound. The repeated tremors in the soil, according to Vanderbilt University researcher Dr. Kenneth C. Catania (testing a hypothesis first advanced by Charles Darwin), apparently mimic the vibrations and noise created by hungry moles digging for worms. Frightened by the imagined predators, the wrigglers rush from their burrows to the surface and across the ground, only to end up in the grunter’s bucket.

Besides sacrificing themselves as bait for the fish we all love to eat, and as playthings for mean little boys, earthworms provide countless other benefits for humankind, most notably their tilling and enrichment of our planet’s soil. In his last scientific book, published in 1881, Charles Darwin wrote, "The plough is one of the most ancient and most valuable of man’s inventions; but long before he existed the land was in fact regularly ploughed, and still continues to be thus ploughed by earth-worms. It may be doubted whether there are many other animals which have played so important a part in the history of the world, as have these lowly organised creatures."

The full moon each March, when worms emerge from their winter dormancy, is called by many the "Worm Moon." This year’s, on March 9, with the lunar orb at its closest to our planet, was in fact a Worm Supermoon, an especially fitting recognition of the vast contributions rendered to Mother Earth by "Lowly Worm" (to borrow Richard Scarry’s affectionate appellation).

Worms are not always so beloved, however. In 1843 Edgar Allen Poe first published his grim "The Conqueror Worm," exploring the creature’s long association with decomposition of the dead: "A blood-red thing that writhes from out / The scenic solitude! / It writhes! - it writhes! - with mortal pangs / The mimes become its food, / And the angels sob at vermin fangs / In human gore imbued." Actor Vincent Price gloomily intoned lines from the poem in the 1968 British horror film "The Witchfinder’s General," retitled "The Conqueror Worm" for U.S. audiences.

Poe’s conquering worm inspired lyrics for goth musicians like Voltaire, Portal, and Devil Doll–but beware: listening to any of those tunes too often could give you an ear-worm! On YouTube you can hear the horror-folk band Harley Poe groaning these lines from the anonymous World War I "Hearse Song": "The worms crawl in, the worms crawl out. / The worms play pinochle on your snout. / They eat your eyes, they eat your nose. / They eat the jelly between your toes."

Worms that eat us can be mighty scary. Think of the space slug exogorths in "The Empire Strikes Back" (1980), the colossal sandworms in the 1984 cult classic "Dune" that could be summoned with a "thumper" like Gary Revell’s stob (a "Dune" remake is due out this December), the carnivorous graboids in the 1990 sci-fi flick "Tremors," and the legendary olgoi-khorkhoi ("large intestine worms") depicted in the 2010 Syfy channel movie "Mongolian Death Worm." But none of these cinematic creations are any more terrifying than the real-life giant Mekong River earthworms that grow up to 10-feet long.

In one childhood ditty dating back at least to the early 1900s, the unloved among us wreak a kind of reverse revenge: "Nobody likes me, everybody hates me / I think I'll go eat worms! / Big fat juicy ones / Eensie weensy squeensy ones / See how they wiggle and squirm!" Modern nutritionists assure us, in case you’re hesitant to try this yourself, that earthworms are actually a high protein superfood.

The Romans called worms, maggots, and other such squirmers vermes (singular vermis). In classical Latin the letter V was pronounced like our "W," so vermis not only looks but even sounds like its Germanic sibling-word "worm." A small worm was a vermiculus. Taking its species name from that Latin diminutive, the scale insect, Kermes VERMILio, with its tiny red VERMiform (worm-shaped) larvae, was from Greek and Roman times through the Middle Ages a chief source of the bright red-orange dye similar to modern VERMILion and the color VERMeil. The mineral VERMICULite was so named for the way it expands into elongated wormy strands when heated.

The Latin term has evolved also into such unsavory English derivatives as VERMin and VARMint. When worms slither inside us or our pets, you can always buy some VERMiFUGe (from Latin fugere, "take flight," as in FUGitive), the term for several medications that send those VERMinous worms "fleeing" (I recently found "Dr. Recommends Vermi-Fuge 1 oz. by Mediral" for sale on AMAZON). More drastic would be a VERMiCIDe (title of a grisly Mars Volta tune, from caedere/cidere, like homiCIDe and suiCIDe), just killing them outright. Or, if you suffer from VERMiphobia, you might simply try calming your nerves by pouring yourself a drink and reading LoreLei Shannon’s short-story collection, "Vermifuge: And Other Toxic Cocktails" (spotted on Walmart’s website).

Now that dinner-time approaches, the mention of cocktails and eating worms brings a favorite dish to mind. Many of the pastas we enjoy have drawn their names, through Italian, from the language of ancient Rome. TORTellini are "little twists," from torquere/tortum, "to wind or twist tightly" (and also "to TORTure"); ROTini spiral like a "wheel," Latin rota (as in ROTate/ROTation); and strands of LINGuine, a LINGuist’s favorite, are long and flat like linguae, which means literally "tongues" and figuratively "LANGuages."

But for tonight’s pasta choice, maybe topped with Apalachicola oysters, fresh garlic, and VERMILion tomatoes all sautéed in olive oil, I’m contemplating VERMICELli. When you’ve tossed those long, slender noodles into your pot of boiling water and see them start squirming around, you’ll know why some culinary genius chose to call them … "little worms!"
