heathernewman
Jabberwocky Tree
This is the Jabberwocky Tree located in the staff garden at Christchurch College in Oxford. This Jabberwocky Tree is a Japanese Plane and this is and its two sisters are the originators of every hybrid and London Plane Tree in the UK.
There was at one time a Don of mathematics at Christchurch named Charles Dodgson who befriended the three children of Henry Liddell especially his daughter Alice who begged him to write the stories he told them down. Dodgson wrote the stories down under the pen name of Lewis Carroll and until his death never admitted they were the same man. Dodgson did write much under his own name though in the field of mathematics. Legend has it that Queen Victoria loved Alice in Wonderland so much she asked him to send a copy of his next book when it came out and what she was sent was one of Charles Dodgsons books on mathematics.
You can see much evidence of the adventures of Alice in Christchurch including Dodgson's own nickname 'the Dodo' and their father Henry Liddell was known as the Little White Rabbit as Christchurch operates on 'Oxford Time' which is five minutes behind Greenwich Meridian Time (this harks back to the time before the railways when there were different time zones in England). He would often be seen running looking at his watch wearing his ceremonial white robes and was nicknamed the White Rabbit for this reason!
The Jabberwocky how ever is my favourite and truly is within Carroll's style of literary nonsense and tells the story of a mans son who slays the evil Jabberwock!
'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 Tree
This is the Jabberwocky Tree located in the staff garden at Christchurch College in Oxford. This Jabberwocky Tree is a Japanese Plane and this is and its two sisters are the originators of every hybrid and London Plane Tree in the UK.
There was at one time a Don of mathematics at Christchurch named Charles Dodgson who befriended the three children of Henry Liddell especially his daughter Alice who begged him to write the stories he told them down. Dodgson wrote the stories down under the pen name of Lewis Carroll and until his death never admitted they were the same man. Dodgson did write much under his own name though in the field of mathematics. Legend has it that Queen Victoria loved Alice in Wonderland so much she asked him to send a copy of his next book when it came out and what she was sent was one of Charles Dodgsons books on mathematics.
You can see much evidence of the adventures of Alice in Christchurch including Dodgson's own nickname 'the Dodo' and their father Henry Liddell was known as the Little White Rabbit as Christchurch operates on 'Oxford Time' which is five minutes behind Greenwich Meridian Time (this harks back to the time before the railways when there were different time zones in England). He would often be seen running looking at his watch wearing his ceremonial white robes and was nicknamed the White Rabbit for this reason!
The Jabberwocky how ever is my favourite and truly is within Carroll's style of literary nonsense and tells the story of a mans son who slays the evil Jabberwock!
'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.