Knook

A Knook is a type of immortal being or fairy in the work of L. Frank Baum. Knooks are the guardians over the animals, though later minor references have placed them in charge of trees, presumably due to their crooked appearance.

Knooks appear in the following stories:

*"The Enchanted Types" (1901)
*"The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus" (1902)
*"A Kidnapped Santa Claus" (1904)
*"Nelebel's Fairyland" (1905)
*"The Road to Oz" (1909)

Baum introduced Knooks in "The Enchanted Types", specifically a Knook named Popopo who becomes distraught over the use of stuffed birds on women's hats, a common target of the Anti-Vivisectionists of the time.

The most important appearances of Knooks are in Baum's stories of Santa Claus. They are among the immortals who raise the young Neclaus and help him to make the toys. Claus's favorite Knook is Peter. Wil Knook, the guardian of deer, is the reason Claus's rides occur only on Christmas. Ak, the Master Woodsman of the World sees that a compromise needs to be made. Claus wants to use the reindeer for nightly deliveries; Wil doesn't want him to use them at all. Ak declares that Claus is allowed to use the reindeer once a year, and Wil shrewdly chooses the holiday, as it is a mere two weeks away from the hearing and will keep the reindeer in the forest another year. Wil's plan backfires when Claus's other friends find the hoard of toys stolen by the Awgwas. Peter Knook helps deliver the toys when Claus is kidnapped by the Daemons, and with Wisk the Fairy, Nuter the Ryl, and Kilter the Pixie, leads an army of immortals against the Daemons.

A group of Knooks, along with Ryls, appear with Claus at Princess Ozma's birthday party, now in "The Road to Oz", and a few, along with some Ryls and Gigans, join the renegade Nelebel in her punishment and are involved in developing the beauty of Coronado, California. In these stories, Baum associates Knooks with wood and trees, though one wonders how he could have forgotten Necile, Queen Zurline, and the other wood nymphs who serve this function in the earlier stories.

In his 1909 essay "Modern Fairy Tales", Baum canonized his creations among the immortals when he wrote, "Yet we know the family of immortals generally termed 'fairies' has many branches and includes fays, sprites, elves, nymphs, ryls, knooks, gnomes, brownies and many other subdivisions."

Samuel Beckett refers to a knook which has helped one of his characters, Pozzo In Waiting for Godot, think beyond the banal and the mundane.

Knooks in adaptations

The Knooks appear in stage and television adaptations of the Santa Claus stories. In the 1985 Rankin-Bass "The Life & Adventures of Santa Claus" (1985), Peter Knook, voiced by Peter Newman, is elderly and rather crotchety, but a good friend to Claus. Two other knooks recognize Claus's call when he is kidnapped by the Awgwas and make the large cobra and giant spider leave him. Wil Knook is omitted, and after Claus's trial run with the reindeer, Peter arbitrarily chooses Christmas Eve as the only night Claus can continue to take the deer. In Glen Hill's 2000 animated version, several Knooks, including Wagif (Jess Harnell) and Peter (Nick Jameson). Wil Knook also appears in the film, actor unidentified. Here Ak (Hal Holbrook), upon hearing Wil's complaint, chooses Christmas as an appropriate time for "Nicholas" (Baum's text states this is an erroneous form of "Neclaus", but it's the name used throughout the film) to take the reindeer for the purpose of giving, in spite of the fact that it creates an identical conflict to that found in the book.