In
Lewis Carroll's Looking-Glass Land, mome raths are small green pigs with long
snouts (© Dr Karl Shuker)
Down through the years, I've documented
here on ShukerNature, and subsequently in various of my books, a number of
mysterious creatures featured in certain famous works of literary fiction,
investigating their possible origins, in particular the real-life animals that
may have inspired their creation.
Such book-dwelling beasts chronicled by
me include (but are by no means limited to): the Cheshire cat and the mock
turtle from Lewis Carroll's classic children's book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (click here and here to read my respective accounts of
them); the tiny but deadly snakeling Karait from Rudyard Kipling's stand-alone
short story 'Rikki-Tikki-Tavi' (click here); the rather larger but no less
lethal Indian swamp adder (aka the Speckled Band) and the giant rat of Sumatra
confronted by the great detective Sherlock Holmes (click here and here); the dream-like hound of the
hedges from Charles G. Finney's celebrated fantasy novel The Circus of Dr Lao (click here); the wild were-worms of the Last
Desert as referred to by Bilbo Baggins in J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit (click here); Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's huge Brazilian
black cat (click here); Ron Weasley's giant spider
nemesis in a Harry Potter novel (click here); plus a veritable menagerie of
scientifically-unrecognised fauna, from a purple bird of paradise and gigantic
luna moths that really are from the moon to some shy living dinosaurs, a giant
pink sea snail, and the incredible bicranial pushmi-pullyu, all inhabiting the delightful
Doctor Dolittle novels written by Hugh Lofting (click here, here,
and here).
The
1969 Bancroft Classics #47 hardback edition of Through the Looking-Glass that I owned as a child (© Bancroft Books
– reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for
educational/review purposes only)
As it's been a quite while since I last
wrote about any such literary cryptids, however, I feel that it's high time I
did so again – and what better source to choose from than Lewis Carroll's
second Alice book, Through the
Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There (to give it its full title),
which was published in 1871, six years after Alice's Adventures In Wonderland. As a child I enjoyed this sequel
novel even more than the original, afore-mentioned Alice book, because its
storyline and characters were far less familiar to me.
In particular, I was fascinated by the
poem 'Jabberwocky', one of the world's best known nonsense poems. Alice
encounters it quite early in Through the
Looking-Glass, but as it is written in mirror-image format, she initially
finds its verses difficult to read. Moreover, even when she is able to read
their reflection in the titular looking-glass, she still cannot understand them
because she discovers that they are packed with bizarre made-up words – words
that confused but captivated me just as much as they did with Alice, until she
encountered the nursery-rhyme character Humpty Dumpty, a self-proclaimed
etymological expert, who explained many of them to her.
The
full version of Lewis Carroll's self-penned nonsense poem 'Jabberwocky', as
featured in his second Alice novel, Through
the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There – please click this poem's
picture here to enlarge it for reading purposes (public domain)
Moreover, the latent cryptozoologist
stirring within me even as a youngster meant that I was additionally fascinated
by this poem's tantalizingly brief, ambiguous references to a number of
strange-sounding beasts that seemed endemic to Looking-Glass Land – creatures
like the slithy toves, for instance, or the bandersnatch, the borogoves, the
mome raths, and, needles to say, the eponymous monster itself, the jabberwock.
Some of these were succinctly described by Humpty Dumpty, but others were not,
thereby remaining enigmatic and elusive. Consequently, down through the years
my childhood memories of this poem have inspired me to seek out further
information concerning its fabulous if fictitious fauna in the hope of
determining what kinds of creatures they were – and here is what I've found
out.
As Humpty Dumpty explained to Alice, many
of those weird words in 'Jabberwocky' are portmanteaus, i.e. they have been
formed by combining two or more separate, well-known words together to yield a
totally new albeit far less familiar one. 'Slithy', for instance, arises from
the combination of 'slimy' and 'lithe', 'frumious' from 'fuming' and 'furious',
'mimsy' from 'flimsy' and 'miserable', 'chortled' from 'chuckled' and
'snorted', and so forth (Humpty Dumpty elucidating most of these for Alice). Then
there are some that are simply extrapolations from existing words, such as 'beamish',
defined by Carroll as beaming radiantly with joy or happiness (though,
interestingly, scholars have subsequently discovered that this is one
peculiar-sounding word in 'Jabberwocky' that Carroll did not invent, its usage
having been traced back as far as 1530).
A
chortling mome rath beneath a beamish moon!
For the most part, however, such forms of
word derivation do not assist in revealing the respective natures of the
various anomalous animals mentioned in 'Jabberwocky'. Consequently, it is fortunate
that between Humpty Dumpty's in-book revelations, the accompanying
illustrations prepared by Sir John Tenniel (who had previously prepared those
that had illustrated the first Alice book), and various explanatory notes made
by Carroll in a publication that preceded Through
the Looking-Glass's first printing by almost 20 years, much of the mystery
surrounding them can be dissipated.
The publication preceding Through the Looking-Glass was a
periodical entitled Mischmasch,
written and illustrated by Carroll himself, which was published in 1855. It was
here in which the original, significantly shorter version of 'Jabberwocky'
first appeared, consisting of just the first verse of what would subsequently become
the full multi-verse version in Through
the Looking-Glass, published 16 years later. Needless to say, therefore, as
the jabberwock itself is not actually mentioned in the first verse, that
original single-verse version was not titled 'Jabberwocky'. Instead, Caroll
dubbed it 'Stanza of Anglo-Saxon Poetry'. And as will be seen, it is very
intriguing how Carroll's concept of what some of his fictional creatures look
like changed quite dramatically from his descriptions of them in this
periodical to his descriptions of them (as verbalized via Humpty Dumpty) in the
novel.
A
vintage colorized version from 1927 of Tenniel's illustration depicting some of
the cryptic creatures alluded to in Carroll's poem 'Jabberwocky' - the two badger-faced animals with
corkscrew-shaped muzzles and webbed feet are toves; the two long-legged birds
(one of them is kneeling with legs bent) are borogoves; and the four small
long-snouted pigs are mome raths (green in colour, according to Humpty Dumpty,
hence tinted here accordingly), of which three are in the foreground above the
toves and borogoves, with the fourth one just visible in the background to the
left of the sundial) (public domain)
So let's begin our annotated checklist of
the 'Jabberwocky' wildlife. The creatures first mentioned in it are the slithy
toves, which as noted earlier are apparently slimy and lithe, and are the
subjects of the most detailed description of any creature name-checked in the
poem. According to Humpty Dumpty:
Toves are something like
badgers, they're something like lizards, and they're something like
corkscrews...Also they make their nests under sun-dials, also they live on
cheese.
And that is still not all. For as noted
in the poem, they "gyre and gimble in the wabe", which as defined by
Humpty Dumpty means that they go round and round like a gyroscope, and bore
holes like a gimlet. As for the wabe, he states that this is the grass plot
around a sundial (where the toves make their nests) and is so named because it
"goes a long way before it, and a long way behind it".
Only
in Looking-Glass Land – a green pig beneath a blue moon!
Conversely, back in 1855 Carroll
described the toves quite differently in Mischmasch,
stating that they were "a species of Badger [which] had smooth white hair,
long hind legs, and short horns like a stag [and] lived chiefly on cheese".
Moreover, rather than defining the wabe as the grass plot around a sundial, he
claimed that it was the side of a hill.
Moving on to the borogoves, they are
described merely as mimsy in the poem itself, which as we have seen earlier
indicates that they are flimsy and miserable. However, Humpty Dumpty expands
upon this briefest of accounts by stating that a "borogove is a thin
shabby-looking bird with its feathers sticking out all round, something like a
live mop". Tenniel's picture illustrates them as vaguely stork-like, with
very long legs (one of them is kneeling, so its lengthy legs are largely
concealed beneath its body). Conversely, again, in his Mischmasch periodical Carroll had described this species as: "An
extinct kind of Parrot. They had no wings, beaks turned up, and made their
nests under sun-dials: lived on veal". Interestingly, therefore, it would
appear that when writing Through the
Looking-Glass, Carroll transferred to the toves the distinctive habit of
making their nests under sundials that he had originally attributed in Mischmasch to the borogoves.
You
lookin' at me? Is this mome rath feeling rather wrathful?
Now we come to my favourite members of
the 'Jabberwocky' zoo (though you've probably already guessed that, by virtue
of their pictorial preponderance in this blog article!). Namely, the mome
raths. Humpty Dumpty merely describes them as "a sort of green pig",
whereas in perhaps his single most dramatic change of identity for any animal referred
to in this poem, Carroll stated in Mischmasch:
'Rath' is "a species of
land turtle. Head erect, mouth like a shark, the front forelegs curved out so
that the animal walked on its knees, smooth green body, lived on swallows and
oysters.
Transforming from a green land turtle to
a green pig in just 16 years is quite a metamorphosis, that's for sure! Having
said that, I personally consider a small long-snouted green pig to be a much
more delightful concept than a shark-mouthed, knee-walking land turtle,
green-coloured or otherwise. And speaking of long-snouted: Tenniel appears to
have been wholly responsible for giving that particular characteristic to the
quartet of mome raths depicted by him, an example of artistic licence, perhaps,
as it certainly does not feature in either of the verbal portraits quoted above
for this porcine species.
A
mome rathlet (or green piglet, if you prefer!) – how cute is that??
Perhaps the most unexpected of all
portrayals of the mome raths, however, appears in Walt Disney's classic 1951
animated feature film Alice in Wonderland.
One rather sad, downbeat scene features a tearful Alice having inadvertently
become lost in the dark, forbidding Tulgey Wood, home of the jabberwock (but
never seen in this movie version). Suddenly, a voice breaks the somber
stillness, warning Alice somewhat peremptorily not to step on the mome raths.
Shocked, she looks down, and there all around her are small entities resembling
flowers but walking on two tiny legs. These very atypical mome raths duly
assemble themselves in various shapes, culminating in a large arrow that points
to the route leading out of Tulgey Wood, which a very thankful Alice swiftly
follows. Although these floral mome raths are certainly endearing (albeit
inexplicable!), I feel that some animated green pigs would have been more
appealing to this movie's viewers, as well as being far more in-keeping with
its somewhat psychedelic visuals.
But now to the descriptive component of
this creature's name – from where is the 'mome' in 'mome rath' derived? Here,
for the first time, we find little (if any) satisfactory explanations. Even the
etymological egomaniac that is Humpty Dumpty confesses to Alice that he is
uncertain regarding the derivation of 'mome' – an admission indeed! – offering
only this vaguely hopeful suggestion: "I think it's short for 'from home',
meaning that they'd lost their way, you know". Rather like Little Bo Peep's
sheep, then? As for 'rath': whenever I read 'Jabberwocky' as a child, 'rath'
always reminded me of the word 'rasher' – who knows, perhaps I was onto
something!
A
couple of seriously strange mome raths!
And with regard to this poem's claim that
"the mome raths outgrabe", Humpty Dumpty reveals that
"'outgribing' is something between bellowing and whistling, with a kind of
sneeze in the middle" (with 'outgrabe' being the past tense of 'outgribe').
So now we know!
Moving now into the second verse of
'Jabberwocky', it includes three more mystery beasts, the first, and also the
foremost, of these being this poem's eponymous beast itself – the jabberwock. Yet
in spite of its being the title character, very little descriptive information
is provided for this monster. It is said to have "jaws that bite" and
"claws that catch", which apart from confirming that it does indeed
possess these particular anatomical accoutrements is of very little use,
bearing in mind that their respective, exceedingly succinct one-verb
descriptions fit the activity of the jaws and claws of most animals thus equipped.
"Beware
the Jabberwock, my son!"
The only other details provided are the statements
in the fourth verse that the jabberwock has "eyes of flame", that it
"came whiffling through the tulgey wood", and that it
"burbled". The first statement is self-explanatory, and so, in a
sense, is "whiffling" – for instead of being a Carrollian invention,
this is a real word whose usage can be traced back as far as 1568, and is
defined in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary
as emitting or producing a light whistling or puffing sound. As for
"burbled", Carroll stated in a letter dating from 1877 (six years
after Through the Looking-Glass was
published) that he didn't remember creating it, but surmised that it may be a
composite of 'bleat', 'murmur', and 'warble'. Interestingly, 'burble'
subsequently entered the English language as an accepted word, and today is
defined in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary
as a verb that means to make a bubbling sound, and also to babble or prattle,
plus a noun that means prattle. So, surprisingly, it looks like when pondering
the origin of 'burble', Carroll didn't consider two words that seem much more
likely to have been bona fide components of it, namely 'bubble' and 'babble',
than either 'bleat' or 'murmur' (though his third proposed component, 'warble',
does still seems promising as a contender in this capacity).
Due to the scarcity of morphological
details provided in thje poem, Tenniel was evidently given free rein when
preparing his detailed full-page illustration of the jabberwock, which is
reproduced in vintage colorized form below. As can be seen, Tenniel's terror is
a most curious creature – combining a very lengthy elongate neck and tail, a
pair of insect-like antennae, and a pair of catfish-like mouth barbels with
huge bat-like wings, long bushy side-whiskers, and the incisors of a rabbit,
plus, just for good monstrous measure, no doubt, it is wearing a very natty waistcoat!
Vintage
colorized version of Tenniel's original illustration of the jabberwock, from Through the Looking-Glass (public
domain)
The other two mystery beasts name-checked
in the second verse are the jubjub bird and the frumious bandersnatch. No
details whatsoever are given in it regarding the jubjub bird, but as the father
in the poem tells his son to beware both of these entities, we must assume that
they were dangerous ones. The only additional clue regarding the bandersnatch
is Carroll's use of the portmanteau adjective 'frumious' to describe it. This
is a word that Carroll deferred from defining until a few years later, in the
preface to his lengthy stand-alone nonsense poem The Hunting of the Snark, published in 1876, and in which both the
jubjub bird and the bandersnatch reappear. Two of this latter poem's main
characters hear the jubjub bird's very scary cry (described as a shrill and
high scream), whereas a third main character is attacked by the bandersnatch
and is driven insane after trying to bribe it. In this composition's preface,
Carroll states that 'frumious' is a composite of 'fuming' and 'furious', so
clearly the bandersnatch is a beast best avoided!
Meanwhile, here is a very charming but
somewhat idiosyncratic illustration from 1902 depicting the jubjub bird and the
bandersnatch, prepared by Peter Newell (1862-1924), an American artist and
writer of children's books, in which neither of these creatures seems even remotely
belligerent, let alone frumious:
Illustration of the jubjub bird and the bandersnatch by Peter
Newell in a 1902 edition of Through the
Looking-Glass (public domain)
No further creatures appear in
'Jabberwocky', but those that are present there have frustrated and fascinated
generations of readers eager to learn more about them, and no doubt will
continue to so for the foreseeable future.
Except for this ShukerNature blog
article's opening photograph of a mome rath, which I created by digitally
manipulating a public-domain stock photo of a typical shorter-snouted pink porker, all mome rath illustrations included here (as well as the first
jabberwock illustration) were created by Magic Studio.
In
a mome rath galaxy far, far away, Through
the Looking-Glass meets The Lord of
the Rings, or could it be Planet of
the Pigs?