Locasta Tattypoo ((link)) May 2026
Long live Locasta Tattypoo. The forgotten witch. The first guardian. The best of the North.
Consider the audacity of that. Locasta, from her northern tower, projects a mark of sovereignty across the entire country of Oz, telling every bandit, beast, and wicked witch: This child is mine. The Wicked Witch of the West spends the entire middle of the novel unable to touch Dorothy, only resorting to tripping her or summoning wolves and crows. Why? Because of Locasta’s kiss. That is the mark of a true political operator. Locasta’s true character emerges in the subtext of Oz’s recent history. Before Dorothy’s arrival, Oz was a fractured state. The Wizard, a humbug from Omaha, ruled the Emerald City through illusion. The four quadrants were each governed by a witch: two wicked (East and West), two good (North and South). This was not a coincidence. It was a cold war. locasta tattypoo
“I am not as powerful as the Wicked Witch of the East was,” she confesses, “or I would have made you some wings to fly home.” This is a rare moment of vulnerability from a sovereign. She is a good witch, but not an omnipotent one. Her power is defensive, not teleportational. She redirects Dorothy to the Emerald City not out of cruelty, but out of honest limitation. She is the good administrator who knows her own constraints. The name “Tattypoo” is one of Baum’s most delightful inventions—part nonsense, part implied history. In later Oz books (particularly Ruth Plumly Thompson’s and Baum’s own The Tin Woodman of Oz ), we learn that Locasta is not a sorceress by accident. The Tattypoo family has served the North for generations, often intermarrying with the ruling fairy dynasties of Oz. Long live Locasta Tattypoo
And that is precisely why later Oz authors marginalized her. The post-Baum Oz canon (especially the Thompson and Neill books) favored glamour and spectacle. A elderly, pragmatic sorceress who does paperwork? Give us Glinda, with her chariot of rubies and army of maidens. Locasta faded into footnotes, appearing only in adaptations that respect Baum’s original text, like the 1985 film Return to Oz (where she appears briefly in the background of Mombi’s hall) or the 2007 comic The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by Eric Shanower and Skottie Young. Locasta’s most revealing scene occurs not in the first book, but in Baum’s The Marvelous Land of Oz (the second novel). When the young boy Tip flees the wicked witch Mombi, he seeks refuge in the North. Locasta receives him not as a supplicant, but as a queen receiving a political refugee. She listens to his story, then delivers a chilling line: The best of the North
“I knew Mombi long ago. She was the nurse of the royal family of the North, before the Nome King’s magic overthrew the old dynasty. She was never trustworthy. You did well to flee.”
That is the quiet heroism of Locasta. She empowers others. She sets boundaries. She admits her limits. And then she waits, trusting that her small act of protection—a charm, a kiss, a piece of advice—will be enough to change the course of a kingdom.
Baum describes her as a “little old woman” with snow-white hair, dressed in a beautiful white silk gown. She wears a pointed hat set with rubies and carries a wand. Her demeanor is not the saccharine benevolence of the film; it is pragmatic, weary, and deeply concerned with protocol. To understand Locasta, one must understand the Gillikin Country. Unlike the cheerful, agrarian Munchkin Country (East) or the pastoral Quadling Country (South), the North is a land of rugged forests, purple mountains, and, most importantly, magic. It is home to the Magic Isle of Yew, the underground realms of the Nomes, and the mysterious forests where inanimate objects speak. Ruling this region is no small feat.
