Snark (Lewis Carroll)
The snark is a fictional animal species created by Lewis Carroll in his nonsense poem The Hunting of the Snark. His descriptions of the creature were, in his own words, unimaginable, and he wanted that to remain so.
The origin of the poem
According to Carroll, the initial inspiration to write the poem – which he called an agony in eight fits – was the final line, For the snark was a boojum, you see.
Carroll was asked repeatedly to explain the snark. In all cases, his answer was he did not know and could not explain.
Descriptions of the snark
The poem describes several varieties of snark. Some have feathers and bite, and some have whiskers and scratch. The boojum is a particular variety of snark, which causes the baker at the end of the poem to "softly and suddenly vanish away, and never be met with again".
The snark's flavour is meager and hollow, but crisp (apparently like a coat too tight in the waist), with a flavour of will-o-the-wisp. It is sometimes served with greens. It also sleeps late into the day. While the snark is very ambitious, and has very little sense of humor, it is very fond of bathing-machines, and constantly carries them about wherever it goes. It is also handy for striking a light; the Annotated Snark suggests that this could mean either that its skin is useful for striking matches on, or that it breathes fire.
