Glinda is a fictional character created by L. Frank Baum for his Oz novels. Baum spent a great deal of time with his mother-in-law, activist Matilda Joslyn Gage , who encouraged him to write down his Oz stories. Baum's biographers have drawn correlations between Baum's "Good Witch" and Gage's feminist writings.
Baum's children's novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz refers to Glinda as the "Good Witch of the South"; [ a ] she does not appear in the novel until late in its storyline. Glinda tells Dorothy of how she can return home to Kansas using the Silver Shoes, and frees the Winged Monkeys by giving them the Golden Cap that controls them, after having them escort Dorothy's three companions safely from Quadling Country. Later books call her a "Sorceress" rather than a " witch ", [ 4 ] though Baum's writings make clear that he did not view witches as inherently wicked.
In the books, Glinda is depicted as a beautiful young woman with long, rich rare red hair and blue eyes, wearing a pure white dress.
She is much older than her appearance would suggest, but "knows how to keep young in spite of the many years she has lived"βa fact that is established in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz , by the Soldier with the Green Whiskers. She has ruled the Quadling Country ever since she overthrew the Wicked Witch of the South during the period when Ozma's grandfather was king of Oz.
Glinda plays the most active role in finding and restoring Princess Ozma , the rightful heir, to the throne of Oz, the search for whom takes place in the second book, The Marvelous Land of Oz , although Glinda had been searching for Ozma ever since the princess disappeared as a baby. It may well be that she did not overthrow the Wicked Witches of the East and West, despite being more powerful than they were, because she wanted all of Oz to be unified under its rightful ruler, Ozma, first.
