Literary trivia of the Day

Question: What is the origin of the Tin Woodman of Oz?

Answer: He was once a flesh and blood woodman, but the Wicked Witch of the East cast an enchantment on his axe that caused it to chop off a limb every time he used it. Every time he lost a limb, he would then replace it with a tin counterpart produced by his tinsmith friend. After he has had both his arms and legs replaced with tin parts, he is cut in half by the still enchanted axe, at which point the Witch takes up the axe and chops the woodman into small pieces.The tinsmith then fashioned a complete tin body for the woodman from the gathered pieces. At this point, the woodman was completely tin, except for his head.

The woodman, being perhaps one of the greatest fools in literary history, apparently attempted to use the same axe again and had his head cut off. The tinsmith finally finished the transformation from man to tinman by fashioning a tin head for the woodman.

You can read the whole strange story in The Tin Woodman of Oz