diff --git a/tests/helpers.lua b/tests/helpers.lua
index e1f169692..b22497c73 100644
--- a/tests/helpers.lua
+++ b/tests/helpers.lua
@@ -106,12 +106,18 @@ function M.session_setup_luasnip(opts)
 					end
 				or vim.treesitter.require_language
 
-			-- this is a nop on new versions of neovim, where the lua-parser is shipped by default.
-			ts_lang_add("lua", os.getenv("LUASNIP_SOURCE") .. "/tests/parsers/lua.so")
-
 			ts_lang_add("json", os.getenv("LUASNIP_SOURCE") .. "/tests/parsers/json.so")
 			ts_lang_add("jsonc", os.getenv("LUASNIP_SOURCE") .. "/tests/parsers/jsonc.so")
 		]])
+
+		local version = exec_lua([[ return vim.version() ]])
+		local nvim_07_or_09 = (version.minor == 7 or version.minor == 9) and version.major == 0
+		if nvim_07_or_09 then
+			-- 0.7 and 0.9 need a different parser than master :/
+			-- (actually, master has a lua-parser built-in, so we don't need to
+			-- load one at all in that case :) )
+			exec_lua([[ts_lang_add("lua", os.getenv("LUASNIP_SOURCE") .. "/tests/parsers/lua_07_09.so")]])
+		end
 	end
 
 	helpers.exec_lua(
diff --git a/tests/parsers/lua.so b/tests/parsers/lua_07_09.so
similarity index 100%
rename from tests/parsers/lua.so
rename to tests/parsers/lua_07_09.so