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"The Enchanted Types" is a short story by L. Frank Baum, one of his American Fairy Tales first published in 1901.

Summary[]

After thousands of years supervising nature, a Knook named Popopo has grown bored. He starts to investigate the cities of men for a change of pace. One night, he sees hats in a milliner's shop that are trimmed with stuffed birds. Pitying the birds, Popopo restores them to life; they fly away.

The next day, though, he realizes that he has ruined the milliner's business. He consults the birds, but they are not willing to return to their stationary state. Popopo takes his problem to the King of the Knooks, who gives his subject a creative solution: Popopo enchants the typecases of all the newspapers in the land to spell out a new message, that fashions have changed, and stuffed birds on hats are no longer in vogue.

Background[]

"The Enchanted Types" is one of the eight stories in the collection illustrated by Ike Morgan.

The story is rooted in Baum's involvement in department-story window displays; see The Show Window. The similar story "The Dummy That Lived" expresses the same interest.

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