Matt’s new shed has become a haven for doodle bugs. You can see their small round funnels everywhere in the soft sandy dirt.
When I was little we would crouch down with our head leaned close above the little inverted tornado looking place in the soft dirt and say:
Doodlebug Doodlebug come out!
Your house is on fire and your
Children will burn!
According to the Frank C. Brown Collection of NC Folklore there are many variations on the little saying.
- Doodle doodle, come and get a grain of corn.
- Doodlebug, doodlebug, come up and get a grain of corn; Your house is burning up.
- Doodlebug, doodlebug, come and get your bread.
- Doodlebug, doodlebug, come get your bread before your house burns.
- Doodlebug, doodlebug, come to supper; I’ll give you bread and butter.
- Doodle, doodle, come and get some bread and butter; Doodle, doodle, come and get a barrel of sugar.
- Doodlebug, doodlebug come up, your house is on fire!
- Doodlebug, doodlebug, your house is on fire; Wife’s gone away, and the children will burn.
- Doodlebug doodlebug, come out of your house; it’s burning up with your wife and all your children, except Mary-she’s under the dishpan.
These come with directions:
- Take a straw and stir in the nest of the doodlebugs. While so doing, repeat these words, “Doodle, doodle, come and get a cup of coffee,” a few times, and the doodlebugs will come forth.
- To make a small bug come from the ground, say, “Doodlebug, doodlebug, come up and get sugar.” And to make him go down again, say, “Doodlebug, doodlebug, go down in the ground.”
There’s no telling how many gallons of coffee has been drunk here in Wilson Holler. I can’t believe us kids didn’t know the one about the cup of coffee.
We did sometimes stick a blade of grass into the hole. We didn’t try to stir, we tried to fish for them. I never did get a doodlebug to come out of its hole by chanting at it nor did I ever catch one, but it didn’t stop me from trying.
I can’t wait to show Woodrow and Ira how to call for doodle bugs.
Tipper
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I read that doodlebugs can be kept as pets. The way Ira likes spiders, he would probably love to watch a doodlebug at work catching ants for dinner. We never said a doodlebug rhyme, but we said the one about ladybugs—ladybug, ladybug, fly away home. Your house is on fire, and your children will burn. Have a great day everyone!
Oh, I “played” with doodle bugs my entire life as a child. When you take a piece of grass & wiggle it softly around the top of the little cone the doodle bug thinks something is caught in the cone so he comes up to try to catch it (like a spider does in his web.) Then we would take a spoon & scoop him up along with some sand & put it in the palm of our hand & watch it wiggle around in our hand. They always look like they are walking backwards. Precious memories!
I am absolutely not familiar whatsoever with the antlion doodlebug. However, not to be plumb ignorant on the subject, I just watched a video about the insect and he spends several YEARS in that larval stage trapping mostly ants into his sand pit and tossing around huge boulders (or what amounts to that if he were human.) He’s apparently strong, hungry and homely in the looks department. Also, THE BLIND PIG AND ACORN CAME UP AS A SOURCE OF DOODLEBUG INFORMATION and I screenshotted your popularity proof concerning the subject. So anyway, we gotta burn his house? lol sounds rather drastic for little kids to say. I much prefer the cup of coffee saying myself. I can’t say I’ve seen a doodlebug in my whole life, but then again I ain’t been looking for one so from now on I might go looking for them on my outings… the stuff one picks up from you, Tipper, is mind blowing… you’re a plethora of interesting topics… May the Lord bless you all this day and especially ones sick and broken hearted… the Lord hears our prayers and he sends people to care and pray- sometimes strangers from another part of the country. He’s more than capable of making impossible possible. Believe that!!!
As children, we doodled for the bugs just as you described. Our incantation to summon the bugs was practically identical, though there was a line or two I had not heard.
We used to play with doodle bugs but I never ever heard a chant and didnt even know they lived underground! Learn something new every day!
I have hundreds of Antlions (doodle bugs) in my barn. Take a single ant or very small bug and drop in the funnel to see the doodle bug come out.
I have went to the same church all of my life, our old church building had a large dirt floor picnic shed with many doodle bug holes. Me and the other children would try to doodle one out of the hole but were not very successful. We built and moved into a modern church building that has a social hall in 1965. The old picnic shed is still standing but the roof is falling in and the old swing set we played on is still there. I pass by it at least once a week and always think of the good times I enjoyed there with the other kids and many of the older church members. I also often wonder how none of us kids never got hurt on the swing set, we were always trying to see who could swing the highest. It was a large (tall) maybe homemade set just like the one we had at my grammar school.
Do any members remember when the original Voltswagon Beetle was nicknamed a Doodle Bug? Spell check is showing I spelled it wrong but spelled it like I say it.
😀 68 years on this planet and I didn’t know doodlebugs were real lol I thought their chants were just nursery rhymes. Oh my goodness, Ira’s sweet little voice in the video the other day just slapped a smile on my face that stayed for hours. He sure is a great little helper♡ My great granddaughter is almost 13 months old and does so many funny things as she toddles around. Her pointer finger does a lot of “communicating” for her since she’s not talking much yet. We are blessed by these precious babies. It was great to have you back last night and it sounds like vacation bible school was a success and even better was hearing that Papaw Tony is feeling better♡ My chemo treatments are every 28 days. When I was receiving immunotherapy, only, it was every 42 days. With the chemo, the 3-5 days after are a bit meh but I’m soon back to feeling great and carrying on my usual routine. So thankful! I sure hope/pray he continues to improve.
Never heard of them. Have seen the holes.
I’ve played with doodle bugs, but didn’t say anything to them. I did get one to come out once, and it looked like a very small spider, so my curiosity was satisfied!
We used to talk to lady bugs though. We’d say “Lady bug, lady bug, fly away home! Your house is on fire and your children do roam!, What I wonder is who started those rhymes? It’s really interesting that they’ve been carried on. We were so much more in touch with the world around us back then. I’m glad that you’re passing the custom on to Ira & Woodrow. The world is a wonderful place to explore!
I’ve never heard anyone talk about Doodlebugs before until now. I just didn’t know they existed. Interesting. I’m finding the older I get the more I realize I don’t know as much as I thought I did. Woodrow and Ira will have so much fun with you teaching them about the Doodlebugs. I foresee lots of fun times you’ll have with the boys and the Doodlebugs.