Chinese:
Snail, snail, come here to be fed,
Put out your horns and lift up your head;
Father and mother will give you to eat,
Good boiled mutton shall be your meat.
Several lines in the second German version are evidently borrowed from the Ladybird or Maychafer rhyme which has been pronounced a relic of Freya worship. Here the question arises, is not the snail song also derived from some ancient myth? Count Gubernatis, in his valuable work on Zoological Mythology (vol. ii. p. 75), dismisses the matter with the remark that "the snail of superstition is demoniacal." This, however, is no proof that he always bore so suspicious a character, since all the accessories to past beliefs got into bad odour on the establishment of Christianity, unless saved by dedication to the Virgin or other saints. I ventured to suggest, in the Archivio per lo studio delle tradizioni popolari (the Italian Folklore Journal), that the snail who is so constantly urged to come forth from his dark house, might in some way prefigure the dawn. Horns have been from all antiquity associated with rays of light. But to write of "Nature Myths in Nursery Rhymes" is to enter on such dangerous ground that I will pursue the argument no further.
V.
Children of older years have preserved the very important class of songs distinguished as singing-games. Everyone knows the famous ronde of the Pont d'Avignon:
Sur le Pont d'Avignon,
Tout le monde y danse, danse,