Following our Frabjous Easter Sunday walk, when we pretended we were horses galumphing on the Down,
GiGi had some time today back at the Olde Booke Shoppe, to get back to the serious business in hand- i.e; The Mystery of the Jabberwock.
This poem, I don't know why- has always been a favourite of mine- and I can recite it too. I like the way it sounds like something but you don't know what exactly.
'Twas brillig, and the slithey toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe.
All mimsy were the borogroves,
And the mome wraths outgrabe.
'Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjud bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!'
He took his vorpal sword in hand
Long time the manxome foe he sought-
So he rested by the Tumtum tree,
And stood a while in thought.
And as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgy 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 though slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh, Callay!
He chortled in his joy.
'Twas brillig and the slithey toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogroves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
So, that's the deal. But where did the story originate in Dodgson's febrile imagination Em? I knew somehow that there was no point looking for this at Freshwater- in fact all the creatures don't seem to belong here. But I did feel that they had something to do with his childhood home and also the P.R.B's and Whitburn.
I set my thoughts aside- the time will come when all will be revealed I felt. Six weeks ago, I heard about a book that claimed a lot of character-setting in Sunderland- which interested me. However, I could not find a copy of the book anywhere for love nor money, until one came up at a Library in Durham. So I sought out an inter-library order to borrow it.
Then I forgot all about it ( and unfortunately the books I took out that day ) and so when I went along to pick it up- it was rather an expensive outing!
Here's the book Emily...
'A Town Like Alice's' by Michael Bute. The cover isn't dissimilar in design to mine, and I couldn't wait to start reading it.
Here's the info gleaned from it on the origins of the Jabberwocky. I've quoted a lot verbatim- as it's all in there;
The Legend of the Lambton Worm-
An Anglo-Saxon 'Wyrm' meant a dragon or a snake. In the Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf; the dragon is called the Wyrm, and in nearly all the legends abounding in the North of England the worm was a monster of vast size and power. Bram Stoker also discussed the possibilities of the existence of these creatures in the Lair of the White Worm.
Many Churches in England like the one in the ancient village of Sockburn-on-Tees show worms being killed, and all of the Christian Saints to whom the killing of the dragon came to be attributed are Saints Michael, George and Catherine.
The Legend of the Lambton Worm has been recounted for centuries, puzzled over, dismissed as fiction or explained away as allegory.
Surtees wrote the 'History of Durham' in 1820 and traces John Lambton 'Knight of Rhodes' through five generations.
The second John Lambton, in the 13th Century, spent his Sundays fishing in the river Wear. He flung a catch of a worm 'of most unseemly and disgusting appearance' into a nearby well ( now known as the Worm Well. )
Allegedly, whilst the young Lambton was away fighting the Crusades, the worm moved onto the left bank of the river, and Lambton heard tales of the creature devastating the countryside- and all attempts to kill it proved abortive- since it had the power of re-uniting itself.
In 'Through the Looking Glass', Alice tries to make sense of the poem of the Jabberwocky. She says "I've cut several slices already, but they always join on again!"
On the advice of a Witch ( often good Emily, ) Lambton was told to stud his armour with spear-blades and put his trust in his crusading sword.
" He took his vorpal sword in hand, long time the manxome foe he sought"
Lancellyn Green ( Carroll's diary editor ) quoting Stuart Collingwood- states that the verse of Jabberwocky was written initially at Croft in 1855 ( Dodgson's family home- which makes sense to me ) and added to whilst he was staying with cousins Wilcox at Whitburn near Sunderland. He suggests that the party included a mutual cousin- Menella Bute Smedley. Menella had advised Dodgson on early writings and assisted him in publications in the 'Train' and 'Comic Times'.
On one of the evenings during the visit a verse making game was held, and Jabberwocky was added to as Dodgsons contribution- intertwining the Lambton worm tale with a parody of Menella's much longer versification of a German legend 'The Shepherd of the Giant Mountains'.
In 1867, the 'Ballad of the Lambton Worm' was re-written by CM Leumane- so it was something still held topical by our Mid-Victorian focus-group.
Dodgson closely held on each word that Menella gave to him, and on the 22nd November 1871, a month before the conclusion of Through the Looking Glass that year, states in his diary-
'Heard from Menella Smedley approving of the little Christmas adddress I had sent in manuscript.'
The address with which he had introduced Alice Through the Looking Glass in a four page pamphlet, being the book which begins with the verse of Jabberwocky ( and Emily, was set to also be illustrated with Tenniels drawing of same- except Dodgson having sent it to various Mothers for comment, deemed too scary for children to open with. )
So, there we are Emily, the origins of the Jabberwocky are placed here in Dodgson's early home years, and I can clearly imagine his taste for local legend and tale.
More-over, I am excited that the journey we are taking is now leading us on to the creatures in both the Alice books ( remember the old P.R.B appreciating Ruskin who was turned into the Gryphon? ) and as we begin a new twist to the tale...
As if by magic, here at the Bookroom today...
A Gentleman was browsing the bookshelves as I scribbled notes for todays post, and as I was finishing serving somebody, he came over and said...
" So are you a Teacher? "
" No" I replied.
" So, what are you writing? "
I briefly summarised that I had written a book for my Grand-daughter, and that now I had finished it- had moved on to the creatures in Lewis Carroll's books.
" Oh", he says. " He wasn't very successfull was he?".
" Depends on how you look at it " says I recounting Dodgson's pecuniary success, and as I am finding out ( to be recounted later ) also quite legendary benevolence financially.
Off goes said gent, telling me he has just read a bit about him in the Topography section- which he will find and show me what he meant.
Why THANK-YOU un-named Gentleman, who dropped Arthur Mee's 'The Kings England- Surrey 1938' onto my desk, from which I paraphrase here:-
Dodgson...'Took orders, but never entered the Church... He did preach from time to time, sometimes to undergraduates, but more commonly to Christ-Church servants and to children'
Etc, then-
'There were two Dodgsons, in temperament and in name... He developed into as whimsical a crank as any of the deathless company in his pages, not only in his dealings with other men, but in his work.'
And, last but not least Em, regarding this post in particular- a golden nugget to back-up Dodgson's early interest in worms stands clear in this paragraph-
' At Oxford, his genius for mathematics carried him to the foremost place; but for history and philosophy he had no taste or talent. He revealed the profoundest ignorance of Herodotus, and the examiner at last said "Well, Mr Dodgson, is there any fact mentioned by Herodotus that you do remember?"
At that Dodgson brightened up, and named with much satisfaction a Libyan tribe of which the historian recoreded nothing but that they had painted themselves red and ate apes. That came home to him indeed, for he had many friends amongst the frogs and snails of his father's parsonage, and armed worms with tiny tubes with which to conduct defensive war'.
Well, Emily, who knew?
And, with which today, I rest my utterly serendipitous case!
Sleep well, my precious,
Your ever-loving Grand-mother, GiGi xxxx
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