International snail customs

Village Customs and Folk Lore of Cheshire.
The Superstitions of Childhood.

Children amuse themselves by chaunting to snails, I suppose, in their simple way to charm them - generally the large garden snail with a thick brown shell is chosen. The following, which is varied to suit circumstances, also in different divisions of the county the rhyme changes.

Snail, snail, come out of your hole,
Or else I'll beat you as black as a coal.

Or --
Snail, snail, put out your horns,
Father and mother are dead,
Brother and sister are far away,
Begging for barley bread.

In the North of Ireland we hear the children repeat as follows:--

Shell a muddy, shell a muddy,
Put out your horns,
For the king's daughter is
Coming to town,
With a red petticoat and a green gown.

It is pleasing to observe this peculiar charm, intended, though often to the child's astonishment and vexation in vain, to pursuade the snail to shoot out his horns, is not confined to the United Kingdom. Thus in Naples it occurs somewhat like -

Snail, snail, slug slow,
To me thy four horns show;
If thou dost not show me thy four
I will throw thee out of the door,
For the crow in the gutter
To eat for bread and butter:-

and-

Snail, snail, put out your horn,
Your mother is laughing you to scorn,
For she has a little son just born.

[...] from the Cheshire Observer, 19th July 1873. 

 

 Snails.

The snail is a peculiar fellow. He has odd notions of things, odd ways, odd likes and dislikes, and there is much diversity in the modes in which he is regarded by human creatures - varying from decided favour to unmitigated disgust. Some of us give him so high a character for genius that we attribute him, rather than to Sir Charles Wheatstone and Professor Morse, the invention of the electric telegraph; while others amongst us display the crowning proof of our liking for him - we eat him.

Children have their favourite way of coaxing snails to come out of their sentry boxes. In some parts of Surrey they make use of a couplet equally marked by clearness and severity:

Snail, snail, come out of your hole,

Or else I'll beat you as black as a coal!

And this is continued until the snail puts his head out of his shell. In Devonshire the invocation is expanded to four verses, and begins in a somewhat more poetic form:

Snail, snail, shoot out your horns.

In Silesia the "Schnecke, schnecke" is threatened with the dire fate of being thrown to the crows to eat in the gutter unless he shows his horns. In Naples the cry, "Jesce, jesce, Corna" has precisely the same meaning - so true it is that, in this as in many other instances, nursery rhymes and children's sing-song find their way from country to country throughout the greater part of Europe.

Stonehaven Journal, 12th August 1880.