Funny festivals: Calling all charmers

Worms, like snakes, can be charmed, or at least that’s the premise of a festival in Southeast England. The Blackawton International Festival of Worm Charming invites participants to “charm” as many worms as possible to the surface of a one metre plot of land in 15 minutes. Each team can have three members – a Charmerer, a Pickerer and a Counterer – and the competition gets off to a start with five minutes of “Worming Up” During this time, the teams can do whatever they need to do in order to lure the worms to the surface, except dig or fork. The champions have a surprisingly high success rate, with the world record set in 1986 and standing at 149 worms. In 2011, a team of three and four year olds caught more worms than the highest scoring adult category, at 38, and the same thing happened the following year, with a total of 102 worms. The competition is complete with officials. There is the Worm Master who oversees the festival, the Official Cheat who tempts entrants with additional worms, Old Father Worm who offers advice and the International Judge who has the final say in all worm charming disputes. Anyone caught cheating will be “publicly humiliated and almost certainly disqualified” and the official rules state “all worms must be returned unharmed to the ground after the competition”. The competition first began in 1984 and has grown considerably since then. These days the festival also includes a fancy dress competition, dog show and plenty of food and refreshments. The worm charming festival was voted “Europe’s Most Unmissable Festival” in 2014.