Badgers badgers badgers.... SNAKE!

...Actually, I didn't meet any badgers. I did meet a small snake on the way home. ("Small" in this instance means "I initially took it for a large earthworm that had been stepped on.") I have no idea why it seems to have been lying on its back. I poked it gently with the toe of my shoe, which prompted it to wriggle and flicker its tongue (so I concluded it was alive), and then proceeded by the same method to encourage it to go off into the grass instead of lying around on the path to be stepped on in the dark.