Life in Newburgh on Ythan

By Talpa

A veritable Cornucopia

I was checking the compost bins this morning and was delighted to see that the slugs are still actively chewing up our vegetable waste. The sheer number of these wonderful re-cyclers got me thinking about what the collective noun for slugs might be.

A quick Google came up with a couple that make sense, a Slime, or a Phlegm of slugs. However a Cornucopia of slugs was a quite unexpected offering.

A Cornucopia is of course a horn of plenty, fabled to be horn of the goat Amalthea by which the infant Zeus was suckled; the symbol of fruitfulness and plenty. This is hardly what comes to mind when considering the lowly slug. However, looking at our mass of voluptuous slugs, wallowing on a landscape of colourful rotting fruit and vegetables, it all starts to make sense!

To fully appreciate the ravishing beauty of the slug you might need to make use of the looking glass.

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