An article on earthworms published in the New York Times in 1881 – “Habits of earth-worms: The curious work which they accomplish” – describes a helminth British empire. “In England they abound in the fields, in the paved courts of houses, though they are rarer in bog fields,” the author writes. “Worm castings have been found as high as 1,500 feet in the Scotch hills and at great altitudes in south India, and on the Himalaya mountains. Both in the extremes of a climate like England and in very hot weather, worms cease their work.”
Earthworms are hermaphrodites, which the journalist, all the way back in 1881, expresses in a glittering sentence: “Two sexes unite in one individual but two individuals pair”.
The article was being written because Charles Darwin had just released a study on earthworms, which gives you that strange feeling – that Darwin, journalists and readers of the New York Times were alive at the same time, that Darwin didn’t just live quietly on the Beagle, beaming ideas into the future.
Earthworms are a bit like this. They are alive at the same time as you; when you are a child, they are an enormous part of your world, they move through your mind, digesting it for you, understanding it and choosing what to put where. (Just ask the journalist of 1881: “The archaeologist has to thank the worm for the preservation of many ancient objects. If he destroys the flesh he leaves intact less destructible substances and many are the coins, the iron arrow-heads of past times, which owe their existences today to the safe keeping of the worms.”).
Then one day, you don’t think about them. And you don’t see or think about earthworms for 20 years. And even though it rains at the usual times of year, you don’t notice the earthworms lying in the pool. They are invisible to you. You don’t see that one bit every earthworm has that makes them look as though they are two earthworms taped together.
If they’re not drowning in pools, they are meeting another watery end: in the mouths of a fish after being twisted on to hooks. To get lots of earthworms for fishing, some people use the ancient ways of worm charming, which, uncharmingly, is sometimes also called worm grunting or worm fiddling. This is done by pushing a wooden stake into the ground, then rubbing a metal bar against it at just the right angle so that it vibrates.
This makes the worms think there is a mole tunnelling around nearby and they squirm to the surface to escape it, like a cartoon character ducking behind a corner while its enemy keeps running straight.
People have also grunted using chainsaws. But this is because – as explained – they have not thought properly about earthworms since they were 10. The best worm charmer in the world was 10. Her name is Sophie Smith and she just used a fork.
• Helen Sullivan is a Guardian journalist. Her first book, a memoir called Freak of Nature, will be published in 2024
• Have an animal, insect or other subject you feel is worthy of appearing in this very serious column? Email helen.sullivan@theguardian.com
