Saturday, December 1, 2001
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The prize for correctly answering this month's challenge goes to Lauren Price. Lauren is a first year sociology major who also happens to be a fan of Lewis Carroll's works.
ReplyDeleteANSWER:
It is the Jabberwock from Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There (1872).
Around 1918, the young women attending Greensboro College decided to adopt a class animal, or mascot. For their mascot they chose Lewis Carroll's Jabberwock because they felt it projected individuality. The Jabberwock was something that did indeed stand out from stereotypical mascot choices.
Using their classes colors (then purple and silver/grey), the young women created a banner with the Jabberwock in the center that they used on numerous occassions, including field day. Songs and yells were also created about the Jabberwock. At one point a senior class president even dressed up in a Jabberwock costume during a field day. And for a time, the young women of the college even had stationery with the Jabberwock on it. The Jabberwock appeared on/in a number of student publications, including several yearbooks.
By around 1938, interest in the Jabberwock as a class mascot had waned considerably and after 1938 there is very little sign of or reference to the Jabberwock.
It is important to be aware that the Jabberwock was not an officially sanctioned mascot of Greensboro College. During this time frame (1918-1938), the college did not have an official sanctioned mascot. The Jabberwock was instead simply an unofficial mascot that the young women of the college adopted and used to represent themselves.
Text of the Jabberwock poem from Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There (1872)
`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, has 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.