"_Snail, Snail, come out of your Hole._"--In Surrey, and most probably in
other counties where {133} shell-snails abound, children amuse themselves
by charming them with a chant to put forth their horns, of which I have
only heard the following couplet, which is repeated until it has the
desired effect, to the great amusement of the charmer.
"Snail, snail, come out of your hole,
Or else I'll beat you as black as a coal."
It is pleasant to find that this charm is not peculiar to English children,
but prevails in places as remote from each other as Naples and Silesia.
The Silesian rhyme is:
"Schnecke, schnecke, schnuerre!
Zeig mir dein viere,
Wenn mir dein viere nicht zeigst,
Schmeisz ich dich in den Graben,
Fressen dich die Raben;"
which may be thus paraphrased:
"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."
In that amusing Folk's-book of Neapolitan childish tales, the _Pentamerone_
of the noble Count-Palatine Cavalier Giovan-Battista Basile, in the
seventeenth tale, entitled "La Palomma," we have a similar rhyme:
"Jesce, jesce, corna;
Ca mammata te scorna,
Te scorna 'ncoppa lastrico,
Che fa lo figlio mascolo."
of which the sense may probably be:
"Peer out! Peer out! Put forth your horns!
At you your mother mocks and scorns;
Another son is on the stocks,
And you she scorns, at you she mocks."