Page:Gammer Gurton's garland, or, the nursery Parnassus (IA bim eighteenth-century gammer-gurtons-garland 1795).djvu/64

 Old woman, old woman, shall we go a shearing? Speak a little louder Sir, I'm very thick of hearing. Old woman, Old woman, shall I kis you dearly? Thank you, kind Sir, I hear you very clearly.

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

I suspect that it was the custom upon repeating these lines to hold the snail to a candle in order to make it quit the shell. I find that in Normandy it was the practice at Christmas for boys to run round fruit trees with lighted torches singing these lines.