Ryl

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A Ryl is a type of immortal being or fairy in the work of L. Frank Baum. Ryls watch over flowers and maintain their colors with small paint pots.

Ryls appear in the following stories:

• "The Enchanted Types" (1901)
• "The Dummy That Lived" (1901)
• "The Runaway Shadows" (1901)
• The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus (1902)
• "The Ryl of the Lilies" (1903) (retitled simply "The Ryl" when anthologized in 1908)
• "A Kidnapped Santa Claus" (1904)
• "Nelebel's Fairyland" (1905)
• "The Yellow Ryl" (1906)
• The Road to Oz (1909)

Baum first made two brief mentions of Ryls in "The Enchanted Types", the story in which he introduced Knooks, whom he was less consistent about: "The knooks have more wonderful powers than any other immortal folk—except, perhaps, the fairies and ryls." and "Mortals seldom know how greatly they are influenced by fairies, knooks and ryls, who often put thoughts into their heads that only the wise little immortals could have conceived."

Ryls are generally friendly, and they apply the colors to the toys of Santa Claus. Tanko-Mankie, the Yellow Ryl, however, is known for mischief in bringing inanimate objects to life, as he did in both "The Dummy That Lived", wreaking havoc in a downtown community, and "The Yellow Ryl", creating a disaster in a child's living room while his parents are away. The Ryl who is Santa Claus's favorite is named Nuter, along with Peter the Knook, Kilter the Pixie, and Wisk the Fairy. These four lead an army of immortals to rescue the kidnapped Santa Claus from the Daemons, after flying Claus's sleigh to ensure timely deliveries. The Ryl in "The Runaway Shadows" is a moralizing figure who implores the eponymous ones to return to their owners, for "you are frozen solid now, and think you amount to something. But you don't." if they don't, they "will fade into the air and become lost forever."

A group of Ryls, along with Knooks, appear with Claus at Princess Ozma's birthday party in The Road to Oz, and a few, along with some Knooks and Gigans, join the renegade Nelebel in her punishment and are involved in developing the beauty of Coronado, California.

The Ryl of the Lilies complains to a boy named Bob, "The old nurses prefer to talk about those stupid fairies and hobgoblins, and never mention ryls to the children. And the people who write fairy tales and goose books and brownie stories and such rubbish sit down at writing tables and invent all sorts of impossible and unbelievable things. Why don't they seek out the ryls, who are servants of nature, and learn from them the wonderful truths that would instruct as well as amuse the young folks? The ryls have been sadly neglected, that's a fact. And who's to blame for it?"

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."

There are a number of film and stage adaptations of The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus and "A Kidnapped Santa Claus" in which Ryls appear, but little corroboration as to whether the term is pronounced with a long or a short "y".