The Terrible Kalidahs--Oz pages 15 and 16

Hello lovelies! I have completed the next illustration from my Oz altered book. This is definitely a book tale and not a film tale. Let me fill you in on the story.

This was to be an eventful day for the travellers. They had hardly been walking an hour when they saw before them a great ditch that crossed the road and divided the forest as far as they could see on either side. It was a very wide ditch, and when they crept up to the edge and looked into it they could see it was also very deep, and there were many big, jagged rocks at the bottom. The sides were so steep that none of them could climb down, and for a moment it seemed that their journey must end.

It is decided that the Lion will leap across the cavern three times, carrying each of the companions on his back to ferry them to safety.

They found the forest very thick on this side, and it looked dark and gloomy. After the Lion had rested, they started along the road of yellow brick, silently wondering, each in his own mind, if ever they would come to the end of the woods and reach the bright sunshine again. To add to their discomfort, they soon heard strange noises in the depths of the forest, and the Lion whispered to them that it was in this part of the country that the Kalidahs lived.

"What are the Kalidahs?" asked the girl.

And you may well be asking yourself. This is the picture I have chosen to illustrate.

"They are monstrous beasts with bodies like bears and heads like tigers," replied the Lion, "and with claws so long and sharp that they could tear me in two as easily as I could kill Toto. I'm terribly afraid of the Kalidahs."

They come to another gulf in the road, this one even wider than before. The Lion knows he cannot jump over this one and so it is decided that the Tin Woodman will chop down a tree and let it fall over the gulf to form a sort of bridge.

They had just started to cross this queer bridge when a sharp growl made them all look up, and to their horror they saw running toward them two great beasts with bodies like bears and heads like tigers.

"They are the Kalidahs!" said the Cowardly Lion, beginning to tremble.

"Quick!" cried the Scarecrow. "Let us cross over."

So Dorothy went first, holding Toto in her arms, the Tin Woodman followed, and the Scarecrow came next. The Lion, although he was certainly afraid, turned to face the Kalidahs, and then he gave so loud and terrible a roar that Dorothy screamed and the Scarecrow fell over backward, while even the fierce beasts stopped short and looked at him in surprise.

But, seeing they were bigger than the Lion, and remembering that there were two of them and only one of him, the Kalidahs again rushed forward, and the Lion crossed over the tree and turned to see what they would do next. Without stopping an instant the fierce beasts also began to cross the tree. And the Lion said to Dorothy:

"We are lost, for they will surely tear us to pieces with their sharp claws. But stand close behind me, and I will fight them as long as I am alive."

 This is my second illustration.

"Wait a minute!" called the Scarecrow. He had been thinking what was best to be done, and now he asked the Woodman to chop away the end of the tree that rested on their side of the ditch. The Tin Woodman began to use his axe at once, and, just as the two Kalidahs were nearly across, the tree fell with a crash into the gulf, carrying the ugly, snarling brutes with it, and both were dashed to pieces on the sharp rocks at the bottom.

 On both the pictures I decided to paint the background green as I wanted to create a look of a forest, but the green paint I had was too bright, too emerald, so I added slashes of red and copper brown. I was trying to give the appearance of a struggle with slashes of claws and blood. Then I glued the Kalidah’s tiger head to its bear body.

 On the second page, there was a bit of a hiccup. One of the Kalidahs was meant to be facing the other way as he fell. As I was gluing, I neglected to glance one more time at my placement sketch and by the time I realised he had gone down wrong, it was too late. He was stuck fast. Let that be a lesson, Spidergrrl. Always check your drawing. It is not much a hiccup—it still looks good and very much like I pictured it would be—just not quite as good as it could have been. But hey-ho. There is nothing I can do but be more careful in the future. It was a bit of an issue at first with this conversation ensuing:

Me: Dammit. I am trying to not be cross.

Spiderman: Could you try a *bit* harder?

And so I am taking the hey-ho high road as there is literally nothing I can do.

Here they are side by side:

But the Kalidahs were always fascinating to me. They are the first, but not the last of the hybrid animals Baum invents. The Magic of Oz has a strange beast called a Li-Mon-Eag with the head of a lion, body of a monkey, wings of an eagle, and the tail of a wild ass with a knob of gold instead of hair at the end of it. In the Russian version translated and adjusted by Alexander Volkov (he both expanded it and changed a few elements—read about it {HERE}) they are saber-tooth tigers instead of Kalidahs.

Stay tuned next time for some more “not from the film” illustrations where we look at a river and a stork.