"The Improbable Forest"

…an episode from The Sawhorse of Oz…Sprites, serpents, snails.

"The Improbable Forest of Oz", written and illustrated by Harry Mongold, is the second story of Oziana 1973. It appears on pages 12-21. It is actually three chapters from the then-unpublished novel The Sawhorse of Oz, namely Chapter 19, "The Improbable Forest"; chapter 20, "The Sawhorse Lends a Hoof"; and chapter 21, "The Serpent and the Claud Sprite". (The novel was privately published in 1981.) On his way to Glinda's, the Sawhorse gets lost in an improbable forest, where many things defy explanation, even in Oz. The Sawhorse is recruited to aid a cloud sprite into disenchanting her, but things don't all go as expected.