The Snail Girl

About this story

The Snail Girl, Tianluo Guniang in Chinese, is one of China's best-loved folk tales. Its earliest full version is The White Water Maiden in the Soushen houji (Later Records of Searching for Spirits), a collection of marvels traditionally attributed to the Eastern Jin poet Tao Yuanming: in the reign of Emperor An of Jin, an orphan named Xie Duan of Houguan, near today's Fuzhou, is secretly helped by a maiden from the River of Heaven who hides in a giant snail shell, and she leaves once he discovers her. This version keeps that plot and ending and makes the neighbours livelier; many later folk versions let the Snail Girl stay and marry him.

Tips for telling it

• Drop your voice and slow down when Xie Duan creeps back to peek, so your child holds their breath with him.
• Ask why the Snail Girl helped Xie Duan; it leads naturally into talking about kindness and hard work.
• Older children can compare this ending with the folk versions where the Snail Girl stays and marries Xie Duan, and say which they prefer.

Questions people ask

Where does the story of the Snail Girl come from?

Its earliest known version is The White Water Maiden in the Soushen houji (Later Records of Searching for Spirits), traditionally attributed to the Eastern Jin poet Tao Yuanming. The hero is a young orphan farmer named Xie Duan from Houguan, near modern Fuzhou in Fujian.

What is the moral of the Snail Girl?

Honest, hard-working people deserve help and will be rewarded, but a good life still has to be earned with your own hands. That is why the maiden tells Xie Duan to keep farming and fishing for his living before she leaves.

Does the Snail Girl marry Xie Duan?

Not in the oldest version. Once Xie Duan sees her, she says she cannot stay, leaves the shell to hold his rice and vanishes in wind and rain; he later marries a local girl and becomes a county official. Many later folk versions change the ending so that the two marry.