Jabberin' about Jabberwocks

 

Jabberwocky

By Lewis Carroll

’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

      Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:

All mimsy were the borogoves,

      And the mome raths outgrabe.

 

“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!

      The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!

Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun

      The frumious Bandersnatch!”

 

He took his vorpal sword in hand;

      Long time the manxome foe he sought—

So rested he by the Tumtum tree

      And stood awhile in thought.

 

And, as in uffish thought he stood,

      The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,

Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,

      And burbled as it came!

 

One, two! One, two! And through and through

      The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!

He left it dead, and with its head

      He went galumphing back.

 

“And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?

      Come to my arms, my beamish boy!

O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!”

      He chortled in his joy.

 

’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

      Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:

All mimsy were the borogoves,

      And the mome raths outgrabe.

 

Jabberwocky is perhaps the longest poem I can recite from memory (probably with a few hesitations; thus I hedge my bets). As I never tire of pedantically pointing out, Jabberwocky is the name of the poem, while Jabberwock is the name of the creature that appears within it, as G. K. Chesterton well knew when he had a character in The Man Who Was Thursday exclaim, “Throw a Jabberwock to Jerusalem!” Carroll had written it years before as a parody of Medieval ballads for the Dodgson family 'magazine'. Within the Alice books, Humpty Dumpty explains the meaning of all the other odd words. One of my Communications instructors in college once recited the first verse as an example of how the people you are trying to communicate with need to know what you are talking about and challenged anyone to explain it. I had finally learned that teachers don’t really want a smart-ass answer to their rhetorical questions, and wisely held my tongue.

“Toy Vault had started producing a line of Tolkien action figures at the turn of the century, and were considering branching into Wonderland, but the Jackson movies and the Toy Biz action figures seem to have cut that branch down. Nowadays they specialize in mythological and Lovecraftian plushies.” - https://dailywindowonaworldofwonder.blogspot.com/2013/03/jabberwock-by-toy-vault.html. It is perhaps one of the most regrettable might-have-beens that I’ve ever felt in the toy business. They have indeed produced Jabberwock plushies since then, but the only action figure made today is this odd Balrog-like interpretation by American Magee.

Terry Gilliam (in his directorial debut) and Michael Palin made  a film, Jabberwocky (1977), as a grimly comic tale of the Middle Ages. 

Christopher Lee voiced the Jabberwock (which the film foolishly calls Jabberwocky) in Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland.

A ‘vorpal’ blade has passed into D&D lore as a sword of surpassing sharpness.