Vorpal sword

Vorpal sword is a phrase used by Lewis Carroll in his nonsense poem "Jabberwocky".

Context and defintion

Lewis Carroll published "Through the Looking-Glass" in 1871. Near the beginning, Alice discovers and reads "Jabberwocky". The word "vorpal" appears twice in the poem, which describes a young boy's quest to slay a monster called the Jabberwock: "He took his vorpal sword in hand", and later,

:"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.

As with much of the rest of the poem's vocabulary, the reader is left to guess at the meaning of "vorpal" from the context. It is commonly assumed to mean "deadly" or "sharp"Fact|date=May 2008, words often used to describe swords, but some readers have imagined other properties the word could describe. Alexander L. Taylor points out in his Carroll biography "The White Knight" that "vorpal" can be formed by taking letters alternately from "verbal" and "gospel".cite book|last=Gardner|first=Martin, ed.|title=The Annotated Alice|origdate=1960|date=1971|publisher=The World Publishing Company|location=New York|pages=195-196] The designers of the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game take "vorpal" to mean capable of decapitation, specifically through magical means. This definition is of course a reference to the boy's decapitation of the Jabberwock.

Carroll himself once wrote, "I am afraid I can't explain 'vorpal blade' for you—nor yet 'tulgey wood.'"

In popular culture

"Vorpal swords" exist fictionally in various works, especially in role-playing games and video games, where it is usually based on the Dungeons & Dragons concept.

In Dungeons & Dragons, it first appeared in the original "Dungeon Master's Guide", listed as "sword, vorpal weapon". It could decapitate foes on a very high "to hit" die roll. It has also appeared in several computer games since, appearing in Bioware's highly acclaimed sequel as two separate pieces of "artifact" that can be forged into the sword by the dwarven crafter "Cromwell" found in the docks district of Amn. As Baldurs Gate is part of the AD&D series it retains the ability to behead enemies on certain die rolls.

In literature since Carroll's time, vorpal swords appear in Roger Zelazny's Chronicles of Amber series, Charles Stross's " [Glasshouse (novel)|Glasshouse] 2006, Ace mark, the Berkley Publishing Group] ", Graham Masterton's "Mirror" (where the word is explained as an acronym for Victory Over Ruin, Pestilence And Lust) and other books.

An extinct bird species from the Hawaiian Islands, the Giant ʻAmakihi, was assigned the Latin name "Hemignathus vorpalis" (literally "Vorpal ʻAmakihi") because of its "long, scimitar-like maxillary rostrum". [cite web|url=http://www.bioone.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&issn=0004-8038&volume=120&issue=04&page=0970|first=Helen F.|last=James|coauthors=Storrs L. Olson|year=2003|title=A giant new species of Nukupuu (Fringillidae: Drepanidini: "Hemignathus") from the island of Hawaii|work=The Auk 120: 970–981]

See also

* Runcible spoon

References