On the Back of a Snail

following the silvery trail

Hello lovely friends, and welcome to ‘between the moons’ - where has the time gone since last time?!

Now, I know this may seem a little strange, but I had a fancy to write to you this time about the folklore of snails. Basically, because I knew it would make me research something that was intriguing me. And then we could try to figure it out together.

When I made my series of nine candles over two years for the solstices, equinoxes and the cross-quarter fire festivals, certain conventions developed as I went along. One of them was decorating the tissue paper that wrapped the candles with small stamped designs, choosing four symbols for each that felt appropriate to its theme. I’m currently creating a new candle, and this time I’ve been inspired by the Fair Folk. Fairisees, to give them their East Anglian dialect name.

Without a lot of deliberation, for Hikey Sprite (named after a Norfolk fairy-being) I chose a hedgehog, a snail, a frog and a hawthorn leaf. The frog wears a tiny crown so is - naturally - magical. Hedgehogs are also called ‘urchins’, which is an old word for fairies* And I always think of hawthorn as a faery tree. 

But why snails? I hadn’t consciously remembered any stories or lore linking snails with Otherworldly realms. Perhaps I had a vague notion that in illustrative art, fairies might be shown riding on snails to demonstrate their tiny stature. (Not, of course, that they ARE all tiny!). Happily I stamped snails onto sheets of tissue, and even onto the little blessing cards I’d made to accompany the candles, without ever going to any sources to validate my instinct.

Then I did start to question my choice. I needed to find something concrete - in as much as those tricksy fairisees can ever be called concrete. For Norfolk lore concerning snails, I turned to Of Chalk and Flint: A Way of Norfolk Magic by Val Thomas.