|
Woolly Worm Festival Mountain folklore holds that the severity of a coming winter is predicted by the coat of the wooly worm, a black and brown caterpillar common in fall. If the wooly worm shows more black than brown, the winter will be bad. Whether there is validity to this belief is frequently debated, and a long term scientific woolly worm study undertaken by Dr. Sandra Glover at Appalachian State University in Boone has yet to reach any conclusions. In 1977, Jim Morton, then editor of Mountain Living magazine, decided he was willing to go along with the wooly worm theory, but the wooly worms he saw only confused him. "They all looked different from each other," he says. "It was a matter of which was right and which was wrong." It occurred to Jim that a simple way to determine which woolly worm was right about the winter would be to hold a race. The winning worm would be the official weather predictor. Thus was born the Woolly Worm Festival. It is held each year on the third Saturday of October, and in past years it has been held on the practice football field beside the gymnasium at Lees-McRae College on NC 184 in Banner Elk (the location may change). More than 1,000 people attend the races, and as many as 350 have paid the $5 fee to enter a favorite worm. The worms race on three-foot strings in heats of fifteen at a time. Winners then compete in crawl-offs until only one is left. The festival also includes mountain music and a gustatory treat called Woolly Worm in a blanket-a sausage dog made to resemble a woolly worm in a roll.
|
