And sometimes the following song is shouted on this occasion:
Sneel, snaul,
Robbers are coming to pull down your wall.
Sneel, snaul,
Put out your horn,
Robbers are coming to steal your corn,
Coming at four o'clock in the morn.
The version generally heard in the southern counties differs very considerably from the above, and the original use and meaning are very seldom practised or understood:
Snail, snail, come out of your hole,
Or else I'll beat you as black as a coal.
Mr. Chambers, p. 171, gives some very interesting observations on these lines. "In England," he says, "the snail scoops out hollows, little rotund chambers, in limestone, for its residence. This habit of the animal is so important in its effects, as to have attracted the attention of geologists; one of the most distinguished of whom (Dr. Buckland) alluded to it at the meeting of the British Association at Plymouth, in 1841." The above rhyme is a boy's invocation to the snail to come out of such holes or any other places of retreat resorted to by it. Mr. Chambers also informs us that, in some districts of Scotland, it is supposed that it is an indication of good weather if the snail obeys the injunction of putting out its horn:
Snailie, snailie, shoot out your horn,
And tell us if it will be a bonnie day the morn.
It appears from Gay's Shepherd's Week, ed. 1742, p. 34, that snails were formerly used in rural love-divinations. It was the custom [44] to place the little animal on the soft ashes, and to form an opinion respecting the initial of the name of a future lover by the fancied letter made by the crawling of the snail on the ashes:
Last May-day fair I search'd to find a snail,
That might my secret lover's name reveal;
Upon a gooseberry bush a snail I found,
For always snails near sweetest fruit abound.
I seiz'd the vermin, home I quickly sped,
And on the hearth the milk-white embers spread.
Slow crawl'd the snail, and if I right can spell,
In the soft ashes mark'd a curious L;
Oh, may this wondrous omen lucky prove,
For L is found in Lubberkin and Love!
| [44] | A similar practice is common in Ireland. See Croker's Fairy Legends, i. 215. |
Verses on the snail, similar to those given above, are current over many parts of Europe. In Denmark, the children say (Thiele, iii. 138)—