Carroll's original explanation

"Jabberwocky" was originally written by Dodgson as a young man in his early twenties, and was printed in his private magazine, Misch-Masch, as "A Stanza of Anglo-Saxon Poetry". He printed it with a glossary and a literal translation of the passage into crude English. The meanings in that glossary were a little different from those in Through The Looking Glass, so the translation read: "It was evening, and the smooth active badgers were scratching and boring holes in the hill-side, all unhappy were the parrots and the grave turtles squeaked out".