A bandersnatch is a fictional creature in Lewis Carroll's 1871 novel Through the Looking-Glass and his 1874 poem The Hunting of the Snark. Although neither work describes the appearance of a bandersnatch in great detail, in The Hunting of the Snark, it has a long neck and snapping jaws, and both works describe it as ferocious and extraordinarily fast. Through the Looking-Glass implies that bandersnatches may be found in the world behind the looking-glass, and in The Hunting of the Snark, a bandersnatch is found by a party of adventurers after crossing an ocean. Bandersnatches have appeared in various adaptations of Carroll's works; they have also been used in other authors' works and in other forms of media.

Description

Carroll's first mention of a Bandersnatch, in the poem "Jabberwocky" (which appears in Through the Looking-Glass), is very brief: the narrator of the poem admonishes his son to "shun / The frumious Bandersnatch", the name describing the creature's fuming and furious character. Later in the novel, the White King says of his wife (the White Queen): "She runs so fearfully quick. You might as well try to catch a Bandersnatch!" In "The Hunting of the Snark," while the party searches for the Snark, the Banker runs ahead and encounters a Bandersnatch: And the Banker, inspired with a courage so new Rushed madly ahead and was lost to their view But while he was seeking with thimbles and care, And grabbed at the Banker, who shrieked in despair, He offered large discount — he offered a cheque But the Bandersnatch merely extended its neck Without rest or pause — while those frumious jaws He skipped and he hopped, and he floundered and flopped, The Bandersnatch fled as the others appeared And the Bellman remarked "It is just as I feared!"

In other media

Literature

Television and film

Music

Comics

Games

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