Silver Shoes

Silver Shoes
Illustration by W. W. Denslow in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz of Dorothy holding the Shoes
Plot element from the Land of Oz series of prose fiction
First appearance	The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900)
Created by	L. Frank Baum
Genre	Children's books, Fantasy
In-story information
Type	Magical shoes
Function	Able to send the wearer wherever they wish to go

The Silver Shoes are the magical shoes that appear in L. Frank Baum's 1900 novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz as heroine Dorothy Gale's transport home. They are originally owned by the Wicked Witch of the East but passed to Dorothy when her house lands on the Witch. As gathered from the clues throughout the various books and films, the Silver Shoes will only pass to a new owner if they have physically defeated the previous owner, or the previous owner willingly hands them over.

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900) is the only book in the original series to feature the Silver Shoes directly. They are the property of the Wicked Witch of the East until Dorothy's house lands on and kills her. They are then given to Dorothy by the Good Witch of the North, who tells Dorothy that "there is some charm connected with them; but what it is we never knew." When Dorothy is captured by the Wicked Witch of the West, she tries to steal the shoes. She finally gets one by tricking Dorothy into tripping over an invisible iron bar. Dorothy then melts the Witch with a bucket of water and recovers the shoe. In the final chapters of the book, Glinda explains that the shoes can transport the wearer anywhere they wish. If the Silver Shoes have any other powers they are never outlined in the books, however the Witch of the West was obsessed with obtaining them, as they would give her much greater power than any other thing she possessed, suggesting the shoes hold immense magic. After saying goodbye to her friends, Dorothy knocks her heels together three times, and commands the Shoes to carry her home. When Dorothy opens her eyes, she has arrived in Kansas. She finds that the shoes are gone, having fallen off during her flight and landing somewhere in the Deadly Desert. Though they are mentioned several times in sequels, they never appear again in the original series.

In Alexander Melentyevich Volkov's The Wizard of the Emerald City (1939), the ruby red shoes, as they are called in the manuscript, are the source of Elly's (his version of Dorothy) protection instead of the good Witch's kiss. She is therefore attacked once by an Ogre when removing them, and afterward wears them even when she sleeps. They are not taken from the Witch's body, but rather brought by Toto from her dwelling (a dark cave). This was possibly done to avert the problem of a person wearing the shoes to be impossible to harm, since in that book the hurricane is created by the Wicked Witch to destroy mankind, and redirected upon her by the Good Witch of the North, who suffers no ill effects for harming her. It is said the Witch only wore the shoes on very special occasions. They are lost just like in Baum's book.