- "Will you exchange heads with me?" demanded the Princess. "NO INDEED!" cried Dorothy! "
- ―Ozma of Oz (1907)
Princess Langwidere is the niece of King Evoldo who lives in the magical Land of Ev, which happens to neighbor the magical Land of Oz. She is highly narcissistic, spoiled, vain and conceited.
Appearance, Personality & Lifestyle[]
Princess Langwidere of Ev.
Princess Langwidere sleeps in a huge bed constructed out of the purest crystal and that is surrounded by her heart's desires. The only company Langwidere allows herself to have is usually just from her maids and ladies in waiting. Langwidere does not like to socialize with commoners or even other royalty or people of noble blood. She rarely interacts with others too much and prefers to simply seclude herself to keep from being interrupted or distracted from her daily rituals of pampering or catching her beauty sleep when having one of her many daily naps. Langwidere lives a life of luxury and privilege, she wants little to do with the outside world and isn't bothered by her reclusive, bizarre reputation.
In her life of nearly complete isolation, Langwidere entertains herself, as she has thirty young heads that are interchangeable on her neck. All are described to be very striking, and all are very beautiful, having attractive features, nice eyes, rich hair and flawless skin. Instead of changing her outfits or jewelry every day like most ladies of privilege enjoy doing, such as wearing different crowns and gowns, she simply changes her head to accessorize or match her current state of mood, rather it be a good mood she is in or a bad one. The heads are said to all be safely kept in a vast and delicate bejeweled boudoir known as her "cabinet" in her sleeping chambers. These precious heads vary through all combinations of hair texture, eye colors (except for gray hair and red, tired eyes), skin tones, and even noses and lips of different ethnicities. And the heads of this collection can never age or become worn out as they are all preserved to keep young forever.
Langwidere herself is very vain, conceited, selfish and ultimately lazy as she generally spends every waking moment of her life indoors admiring whichever head she's currently wearing in her large, mirrored chambers and napping in the day for hours at a time. She highly enjoys constantly changing heads whenever she pleases and adopts a new look when she is tiresome of sitting on her vanity-chair admiring her reflections or simply bored with playing music on her Mandolin.
Since she can change her face at will, she has no interest in fashion or beautiful clothing. She always wears a simple white silk gown that falls gracefully to the floor like a wedding dress. Langwidere is said to wear only white because the color white suits any of her heads and goes with anything. Because her appearance changes so frequently, even Langwidere's loyal maid Nanda can only recognize her by a ruby-red key, which she wears on a chain attached to her left wrist, and which opens up all of her bejeweled cabinets.
History[]
After King Evoldo sold off his family to the infamous Nome King, and threw himself into the deep sea and committed suicide after realizing what he had done; his niece, Princess Langwidere by default became regent of the Royal Kingdom in the country of Ev. She spent a lot of money from the Royal-Treasury and the family fortune, vainly on herself. She also only spent ten minutes of every day actually governing and tending to matters of state which was not enough. But much so as she did not care about the people of her land. Furthermore, she admitted that she would rather spend those ten minutes admiring her beauty in a mirror.
When the little girl named Dorothy Gale of Kansas met Langwidere, the Princess was wearing No. 17, which is her most beautiful head but comes with a terrible temper in return. Langwidere curtly told Dorothy that she was boring and stupid, and dismissed her. Then, after closely inspecting Dorothy's face, she changed her mind and said that Dorothy should stay so that Langwidere could take her head and add it to her collection, offering Dorothy one of her less attractive heads, No. 26, in exchange. Dorothy was indignant at this and refused; she was then imprisoned by the Princess's guards until she would consent to Langwidere's demands.
Dorothy imprisoned in Langwidere's tower.
The next day, Dorothy was rescued by Princess Ozma of Oz, who along with the Scarecrow, Tin Woodman, and other Oz creatures, was passing through Ev on a mission to rescue the Royal Family from the Nome King. At first, Langwidere was furious that Ozma and her assembly had stormed her palace, but when the Oz party explained the nature of their mission, Langwidere completely calmed down and said she supported them because if the Royal Family was restored to rule the kingdom, she could finally devote all her time toward admiring herself in the mirror. Langwidere then freed Dorothy, provided room and board for Ozma's group, and told them where to find the Nome Kingdom.
Langwidere speaks to the Ozians.
When the Oz people returned successfully from their mission, the Queen of Ev graciously allowed Langwidere to keep her rooms and her cabinet of heads. (Ozma of Oz)
She is mentioned briefly in Grampa in Oz per the situation of Dorothy finding Fumbo's head and remarking "I once knew a Princess who had dozens of heads and took them off. Maybe he’s like that". However her name in Fumbo's reponse is misspelled as "Languidere". It is inferred she is one of the celebrities in Oz he is acquainted with.
Appearances[]
- Ozma of Oz
- Grampa in Oz (mentioned)
- The Lost Tales of Oz: "The Trade: A Langwidere Story"
Adaptations[]
Return to Oz (1985)[]
See Mombi (Return to Oz).
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (anime)[]
She appears in the third story arc of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (anime) as swapping out hats instead of heads, changing her personality each time she puts on a new one. She sends Tik-Tok to steal the Wheelers' hats.
Dorothy and the Witches of Oz (2011)[]
See Langwidere (The Witches of Oz)
The Wicked Years: Out of Oz[]
In Out of Oz, the fourth and final volume of "The Wicked Years", Gregory Maguire's alternate Oz series, Tip mentions that La Mombey Impeccata took him across the sands to "one of the duchy principalities, I think it was Ev" to visit "some second-rate duchess" who knew how to change the appearance of her head and body. The person Tip mentions is Langwidere, but instead of being a princess she is a duchess.
Background[]
Langwidere was created by L. Frank Baum, and appears only in Ozma of Oz, the third book in the Oz series. As depicted in illustrations by John R. Neill, her appearance is styled on the Gibson girl standard of beauty which was popular at the time of this novel's publication.
The theme of interchangeable or detachable heads appears to have been a recurring motif at this point in Baum's writing career. Other examples of this appear in his fifth Oz book, The Road to Oz, in the form of the Scoodlers, and the transformations of Button-Bright along with the Shaggy Man. Fumbo created by Ruth Plumly Thompson loses his head during a thunderstorm and gets compared to her by speculating if he was a male who swapped out heads.
She was also the inspiration for one of the knitting patterns published in What Would Madam Defarge Knit in 2011 to create an reversible cowl.
Credits[]
- Jean Marsh, Sophie Ward and Fiona Victory as Princess Mombi (Return to Oz, 1985)
- Mia Sara as Langwidere (Dorothy and the Witches of Oz, 2011)
- Sasha Jackson as "Ilsa Lang" (Dorothy and the Witches of Oz, 2011)
- Jessica Sonneborn as "Ev Locast" (Dorothy and the Witches of Oz, 2011)
- Stefanie Martini as Princess Langwidere (Emerald City)