The Snail in Traditional Rhymes of the Celtic Isles
I recently decided to spend a while reading about the role of the Snail in traditional rhymes and verbal charms, and was a bit shocked to find nearly 1000 variants of similar rhymes across different continents and cultures. Despite its shell being, arguably, its most immediately distinctive feature, it was also a bit of a surprise to find that the vast majority of the rhymes dealt in some way with the “horn” or “horns” of the snail—referencing the antennae. Probably close to half of the rhymes I was able to find, I’m sad to say, focused on threatening the snail with physical violence, should it not “put out [its] horns” or “come out of [its] hole,” but I have chosen to write on those examples which focus on supplicating, persuading, or offering to the snail, along with a couple of the more bizarre or mild threats. I have, additionally, chosen to focus exclusively on traditional rhymes of the Celtic Isles (a term I use here to roughly encompass both the Celtic Nations and the British Isles), since the cultures of those regions play such an important role in my Craft, and already constitute a fairly major undertaking in terms of research and writing.
Interestingly enough, though not at all shockingly, many of these examples—both the cruel and the whimsical—have to do with the Snail somehow predicting, summoning, or ensuring the weather; and more specifically, the rain. In fact, I would go so far as to hypothesize that the common origins of these hundreds of rhymes calling on the snail to “put out [its] horns,” are a childlike curiosity with snail anatomy, and old-world beliefs/superstitions having do to with the Snail being able to summon either rain, or sunshine, by extending its antennae. I would imagine this conception would have arisen from the correlation of Snails emerging from or withdrawing into their shells in seeming response to the weather.
As put by Eugène Rolland in ‘Faune populaire de la France, vol. III’ (1881):
“The peasants say that snails in general, and Helix Nemoralis in particular, can act as barometers: when they stretch out their horns, all of them and for a long time, they say that it will not rain anymore.”
And so, without further ado...
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“Snail, snail, put out your horns,
I’ll give you bread and barley corns.”
“Snail, snail, put out your horn, And I will give you a barleycorn.”
“Snag, snag, put out your horn, And I will give you a barleycorn.”
England (from a text dated 1744).
Variant 1 comes from Warwickshire and Staffordshire.
Variant 2 comes from Sussex.
“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.
Yorkshire, England (from a text dated 1849)
“Snailie, snailie, shoot out your horn, And tell us if it will be a bonnie day the morn.”
“Snaillie, snaillie, shoot oot yer horn,
An tell me if it will be a bonny day the morn.”
Scottish publisher, Robert Chambers (1802-1871), had this to say about the rhyme:
"In some districts it is supposed that good weather is indicated by the snail obeying the injunction contained in the following rhyme…"
“Snail, snail, put out your horn,
We want some rain to grow our corn.
“Bulorn, Bulorn, put out your long horn, your father and mother is dead;
Your sister and brother is to the back-door, a-begging for barley bread!”
“Snarley-'orn, put out your corn, Father and mother's dead;
Zister 'n brither's out to back door, Bakin' o' barley bread.”
Variant (2) for the last verse:
“Eating o' barley bread.”
"Bulorn" is one of the local names of the snail in Cornwall. It derives from “bull-horn”, “horns of a bull”.
“Snarley-'orn” is the snail's name in West Somerset.
Variant 1 comes from West Somerset, England
Variant 2 comes from Essex, England
“Hod-ma-dod, Hod-ma-dod, stick out your horns,
Here comes an old beggar to cut off your corns.”
"Hod-ma-dod" or “Hodmadod” (and other similar variants) is one of the local names for the snail in East Anglia, with various theories about its origin existing. According to one of the most widely accepted explanations, it might be composed of the words “hood’ (meaning “cap to be put on the head”) mad (the local dialectal term for “worm”) and dod (with the local dialectal meaning of “protruding end of an object”, “rod” or “stick”.) it could, therefore, be rendered as meaning “worm wearing rods or horns as a hood”.
“Four-and-twenty tailors went to kill a snail, The best man amongst them durst not touch her tail;
She put out her horns like a little Kyloe cow; Run, tailors, run, or she’ll kill you all e’en now.”
According to the leading hypothesis for the interpretation of this rhyme—as discussed by Arthur E. Ellis in ‘The Snail in Old Nursery Rhymes’—while it was once widely viewed as a satirical jab aimed at the social category of tailors, that is likely erroneous. The word "tailor" also has a different meaning, since it derives from "teller", which indicates a death knell (or a funeral bell toll,) which is derived, in turn, from "tailer" ("an additional knell or bell toll placed at the tail-end of a service"), because they used to ring those tolls at the conclusion of the usual bell tolls. Centuries ago, in various English villages, the custom was to indicate who had died with a series of special additional bell tolls (knells called “tailers”, then “tellers”, then eventually “tailors”), with nine tolls having indicated that a man died, six indicating a woman, and three indicating a child. Twenty-four bell tolls, then, according to this way of reasoning, would have been a signaling of enormous tragedy and an immense triumph of death. So, according to the logic of this rhyme, an interpretation could be made of mass-death and tragedy being easily averted by the mysterious power of the Snail.
“Seilide, Seilide, Pucai,
stick out all your horns,
all the (old) ladies are coming to see you.”
“Snail, snail, tricksy spirit,
stick out all your horns,
all the (old) ladies are coming to see you.”
The term Pucai or bookee is very likely translated as Puckie, which is to say “little Puck”. Puck (Púca, in Irish) is a trickster spirit, faerie, and/or demon depending on the various cultural lenses it is viewed through.
The connection to the afformentioned “(old) ladies” is mysterious and ambiguous, but it may relate in some way to various Crones in Celtic lore associated with death, healing, fate, and the mysteries. It may, likewise, be associated with the fact that numerous old folk-remedies which would have been sought after by individuals such as the elderly involved snails. It may even be associated with crones and wise-women who were known to employ snails for their cures and charms.
“Snail, snail, put out your horn,
tell me what's the day t'morn.
To day's the morn to shear the corn. Blaw, bill, buck, thorn.”
The last line most likely represents a string of nonsense words used to even out the rhyming meter.
“Willy, my buck, shout out your horn and you'll get milk and bread the morn.”
While it’s clear that Willy serves as a name for the snail in this rhyme, the reasons for it remain ambiguous.
Scotland, Forfarshire / Angus.
“Snail, snail, shoot out your horn, father and mother are dead;
brother and sister are in the back-yard begging for barley bread.”
“Malwen, Malwen agor dy gorn neu mi (fe'th) taflaf i Bwllheli lle mae'r bobl bach yn boddi.”
“Snail, snail, extract your horns; otherwise I throw you in the basin (or: in Pwllheli) where the little people drowned.”
The expression “little people” is used in much of Celtic folklore to indicate Faeries—particularly variants typically seen as diminutive, such as gnomes, brownies, pixies, and the like.
A Welsh legend, with a number of different variants, describes an enchanted cow (or, sometimes, a group of enchanted cows), of unusual colors, that used to help people, but who chose to leave again because of acts perceived as disrespectful. As such, they disappeared into an enchanted lake, surrounded by members of the Faerie Folk, who disappeared into those waters as well.
me a roï d'id eun taumm bara lezou.”
I’ll give you a piece of Breton Bread”
This is a personal translation which required a fair amount of research to authenticate, but if anyone who speaks Breton has anything to point out, please do. The Snail is called “Blaise” in this variant, almost certainly referencing Saint Blaise, a Patron Saint of the throat who is also considered a patron of animals and agricultural activities. Between the use of that name, and the fact that Snails have been associated with agriculture and compared to cattle and horses alike by a number of cultures, this explanation for this particular naming of the Snail seems likely.
“Shell a muddy, shell a muddy, put your horns,
for the king's daughter is coming to town
with a red petticoat and a green gown!”
“Shell-a-muddy”, meaning “muddy shell”, here indicates the Snail.
The connection between the request to put (out) the horns and the fact that the king's daughter is coming is unclear, though the invitation is probably meant to make a good impression with the princess, similar to the content of a separate, Sicilian version of the the rhyme. What’s more, the motif of the beautiful garments is present in various other versions.
“Sneel, sneel, put oot your horn,
Your fayther an' muthel'll gie ye some corn.”
“Snail, snail, put up your horns,
Your father and mother will give you some corn.”
Yorkshire, England—possibly East Riding
“Dodman, dodman, put out your horn, Here comes a thief to steal your corn.”
Odmandod”, “Odmadod”, “Dodman”—which can all be roughly translated as meaning either “Horned Man” or “Man who carries a hill on his back”—are local names for the Snail, in the English counties of Essex and Suffolk.
