All right folks, we've got only one more installment after this one, so we're circling in to the finale!
So jackdaws, mentioned in the last installment but more fully experienced here, are small members of the crow family that generally have black feathers over most of their bodies, with gray on the back of their necks, and light gray eyes (with some differences among the four known subspecies.) They're known for being very vocal -- they can even learn to speak a few words -- and are (as shown in these chapters) known to collect and hoard small items, like their relative the magpie. They mate monogamously and for life, but do live in hierarchical social groups that have been known to make large nesting platforms, as seen here. Of course, real jackdaws probably wouldn't be able to steal things like handsaws and bicycle pumps, as pictured in one of the last chapter's illustrations, but these birds have at least some resemblance to their real-world counterparts.
Oh, and a group of jackdaws is called "a clattering," or sometimes "a train."
One does wonder why the (brief) long faces over the fate of the Scarecrow. I mean, he's been unstuffed a whole bunch of times! I even had to create the "troubling existential questions" tag for him! Even if they didn't have the convenient pile of money to stuff him with, surely they could have just bundled up his clothes and head and stuffed him when they got back to Oz, right?
Okay, so we get back to Oz here. Now, let's get geographically nerdy! It's assumed that when they overshot the Oz border they ended up in Dorothy's "outside world" -- i.e., our world. We meet a clattering of jackdaws, which live throughout Europe and western Asia, and a couple of spots in northern Africa. Now, to get back to Oz from there, they cross over the great sandy desert that separates Oz from the rest of the world, without crossing over any water or anything. So, we're talking about Oz existing within some sandy desert in Europe or western Asia. It would probably be easiest to say that it's in the Gobi Desert because of its size (magic, of course, protects Oz from the extreme temperature variation of the region.) However, the jackdaws have stashed away a whole bunch of money clearly identified as "dollars" -- though how an Oz-born kid knows what a "dollar" is is another matter -- which of course implies we're somewhere in the US, nowhere near where any jackdaws live. And of course, a tornado and a balloon would have a heck of a way to go to bring people form the American Midwest to central Asia like that. So where were they, really? THIS MAKES NO SENSE, BAUM.
(Though of course, it's probable that they were just mistaken about being in the outside world, and were simply in another part of Nonestica.)
Both General Jinjur's Army of Revolt and Glinda's all-girl army are a little more evidence of Baum writing this book for the stage, as even book reviews of the time noted that they were clearly intended to showcase large groups of chorus girls. Whatever, they're still badass.
Though... this here would be Glinda's officer in charge of fudge? Is that right? I mean, I know you want an army to be well-supplied, and I personally would want fudge before going into battle, but... what?
Okay, Jack, you're... you're being rather terrifying here. Please get out of Jellia's personal space.
Okay, only one more installment to go! Will they find out what happened to the Princess Ozma? Will Jinjur be deposed? Will Jack's head spoil? Find out next time!
If you would like to read along, the text can be found at Project Gutenberg with no pictures, and a fully illustrated facsimile of the first edition can be found at Open Library. No reading ahead, though!
