A Kidnapped Santa Claus
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"A Kidnapped Santa Claus" is a Christmas-themed short story by American writer L. Frank Baum; it has been called "one of Baum's most beautiful stories" and constitutes an influential contribution to the mythology of Christmas.
"A Kidnapped Santa Claus" was first published in the December 1904 edition of The Delineator, the women's magazine that would print Baum's Animal Fairy Tales in the following year. The magazine text was "admirably illustrated" with "pen drawings of marked originality" by Frederick Richardson, who would illustrate Baum's Queen Zixi of Ix in 1905.
The story opens with a quick overview of Santa's castle in the Laughing Valley. Santa lives in the Laughing Valley on the border of the Forest of Burzee, and is assisted by knooks, ryls, fairies, and pixies. Its focus soon switches to the five Caves of the Daemons in nearby (though unnamed) mountains. These creatures are pagan daemons rather than Christian demons, in that they are not servants of Satan or necessarily evil. Four of the five, the Daemons of Selfishness, Envy, Hatred, and Malice, certainly are bad, but the fifth, the Daemon of Repentance, is a more ambiguous figure.
Famous works of the author Lyman Frank Baum: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, The Boy Fortune Hunters in the South Seas, Queen Zixi of Ix, The Fate of a Crown, Sam Steele's Adventures on Land and Sea, Daughters of Destiny, The Last Egyptian and many more.
