What does the word "Vorpal" come from?

[Ruined]

What no mentions of the English guru, Don King? A shame...

I hope everyonel has a splendifurous day.

 

[Ylis]

Sorry for the very uninteresting topic, but I was asked this myself and couldn't answer at all... Is it an actual english word or something else? I apologize for my ignorance.

Uninteresting? I'm loving this thread! I really had no clue that "vorpal" was a made-up word, or some of the others that Carroll apparently added to the language. And here I thought he just wrote twisted tales about little girls in LSD-inspired realms....

Thanks for this thread - I actually learned something here

 

[Col_Pladoh]

Gary, the more I hear stuff like this, the more you're reminding me of the two great-uncles from the movie Secondhand Lions - minus the millions of dollars hidden in the barn out back, of course. It's a treat sometimes to listen to someone who's enjoyed their lives, wherever they've gone and what they've done.

I'll quit, because this thread passed "Vorpal" a long time ago, and has started to enter into "Gary Gygax Q&A Chapter 7" territory.

Heh Henry,

Thanks, and I admit I am an unabashed raconteur. Note that earlier I tried to get the thread back on track with the mention of the origins of the Sword of Sharpness, though.

Just to get back into the spirit of the thread, the Flaming Sword was inspired by the deCamp and Pratt novel, The Incompete Enchanter.

Ciao,
Gary

 

[Ylis]

I'll quit, because this thread passed "Vorpal" a long time ago, and has started to enter into "Gary Gygax Q&A Chapter 7" territory.

Well, that'll teach ME not to skip some of the responses on a thread....ah, I joined a little late to catch Gary Gygax. Ah, well...still learned something new AND I can still sit here with my "stars in the eyes" look.

 

[Ylis]

I'll quit, because this thread passed "Vorpal" a long time ago, and has started to enter into "Gary Gygax Q&A Chapter 7" territory.

Well, that'll teach ME not to skip some of the responses on a thread....ah, I joined a little late to catch Gary Gygax. Ah, well...still learned something new AND I can still sit here with my "stars in the eyes" look.

 

[Col_Pladoh]

As long as we're on Simpsons quotes:

Well damn! I missed that episode

One more thing on the subject of those birds. They contained a glass vial filled with some sort of highly volitile alcohol. One day the garage used to warehouse them caught fire, and those little suckers were popping and flying everywhere. We managed to purloin a goodly number of them that had been pulled from the building, so thereafter they served as pure pyrotechnical toys for my gang of buddies. Soon thereafter i learned that I could order fireworks shipped via Railroad Express from Illinois, even though Wisconsin had banned them, so more easily exploded devices supplanted the glass vials...

Cheers,
Gary

 

[Zander]

As for swords, the Sword of Sharpness was a direct lift from one of Andrew Lang's fairy tales, but I'll admit I can't recall which story it appeared in...

Hello, Gary

It's from Jack the Giant Killer.

Check out this link, 8th paragraph from the top.

I have a book with this story (including the cool illos) at home. When I first read it, I remember thinking "that's where Swords of Sharpness come from, eh?". I love discovering stuff like that.

I recently bought a book by Mongoose which includes an illustration of a mini. The mini was made by Games Workshop/Citadel back in the 1980s. I happen to have it.

Sayonara, DM-sensei,

Zander

 

[Col_Pladoh]

Hello, Gary

It's from Jack the Giant Killer.
...

Sayonara, DM-sensei,

Zander

Thanks Zander

The link surely did refresh my memory. Fairy tales are an excelllent source for FRPG inspiration, and i still have gun reading them despite my gray beard!

Cheers,
Gary

 

[Dogbrain]

The interesting thing about "vorpal" swords is that, if one actually looks at the only source material for the term, one will see that it does not describe the D&D type of "vorpal" (cuts real good and decapitates).

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.

From this description, a stronger case can be made that the vorpal sword is primarily a thrusting weapon--and not necessarily the most substantial thrusting sword, either.

"One, two!" is obviously a reference to the "one two", a type of preparation used in modern fencing and its ancestors, perhaps as far back to the rapier, depending upon which interpratoins of sources one believes. The "one" refers to initiating action in one "line" and "two" refers to changing the "line" before actually attacking.

Then we have the phrase "and through". To if one were to "run" an enemy "through", it means that one has thrust ones weapon in so deeply it comes out the back.

Finally, a sound or action associated with the vorpal blade is "snicker-snack". This is obviously onomotopoeia for the sounds that Prof. Dodgson would have heard from young gentlemen practicing fencing (with thrusting weapons) in his own day, and it would be most typical of the sort of attack and defense one would expect to be most likely for a lighter thrusting sword.

That the beast's head was ultimately removed says nothing about how the vorpal sword works, since it was never said that the head was removed in combat. Indeed, it would make just as much sense for it to be removed after combat, as a trophy.

Thus, instead of being some great brutal cleaver, the vorpal sword may very well be a light, lithe, thrusting sword.

 

[Col_Pladoh]

The snicker-snack of the vorpal sword was made without benefit of any opposing blade, no?

Any pointed weapon can go through and through, including a spear.

The vorpal blade might as well be a keen-edged falchion or a rapier.

Hard evidence of regarding the magical properties of fantasy story weapons is rather hard to come by...

The description is in the hands of the DM

Cheers,
Gary