*** Welcome to piglix ***

Billina

Billina
Oz character
Oz Billina byKoehne.jpg
Billina
First appearance Ozma of Oz (1907)
Created by L. Frank Baum
Information
Aliases Bill
Species Chicken
Gender Female
Children multiple Dorothys and Daniels

Billina is a fictional character in the classic children's series of Oz books by American author L. Frank Baum. She is first introduced in Ozma of Oz (1907).

In Ozma of Oz, Billina becomes Dorothy Gale's animal companion after she and the girl are on a small ship and thrown overboard. Dorothy was traveling on an ocean voyage to Australia with her Uncle Henry when a violent storm hit, thus tossing the ship over the waves. The two wash up on the uncharted shores of the enchanted country of Ev in a chicken coop they had taken refuge in. Billina serves in this adventure, the role that Dorothy's pet dog Toto served in the first Oz book, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900).

A spunky, sassy and talkative chicken, Billina was originally named Bill because, she tells Dorothy, "no one could tell whether I was going to be a hen or a rooster". Dorothy insists on changing the hen's name to a feminine form. Billina endures several scares with the Kansas farmgirl before they defeat the Nome King as only a hen can. At the end of the novel, Billina settles in the Emerald City in the magical Land of Oz.

In The Road to Oz (1909), Billina accompanies Tik-Tok into welcoming Dorothy, Shaggy Man, Button-Bright, and Polychrome to Oz. Billina is later present at Princess Ozma's royal birthday party.

Later books reveal that Billina has hatched many chicks (their father unknown). She names all of them Dorothy after her young friend. Gender confusion reappears, however, and the proud mother discovers that some of those chicks will be "horrid roosters"; she changes the males' names to Daniel.


...
Wikipedia

...