Pertha Hills

The Pertha Hills lie in the northern country of Gillikin, a region of fox haunts, dripping dells, and secluded ancient pagan temples to Lurline. The gentry who live there, including Glinda's family, the Arduennas of the Uplands, prefer this rural life to the distant urban threat of Shiz, and even the convenience of rail transportation has not tempted them to risk its complications, curiosities, and evil ways. The hills are the setting of Glinda's childhood before she leaves for Shiz University at the age of seventeen, a place where she was seen off by the whole town of Frottica as the first girl from the Pertha Hills to be accepted at Shiz.

Ama Clutch's Fall

The Pertha Hills are the site of a key family memory that Glinda later weaponizes. Glinda claims that during a picnic in the hills the previous summer, Ama Clutch suffered a terrible fall: she reached for a handful of wild mountain thyme and went pitching over a cliff. According to Glinda's fabricated story, Ama Clutch lay for weeks in a coma, and when she emerged she had no memory of the accident at all, suffering from amnesia by trauma. This invented incident is the foundation of Glinda's lie to Madame Morrible that Ama Clutch is mentally unfit to chaperone a dormitory, a deception that has far-reaching consequences for Glinda's own life and for Elphaba's.

Glinda's Homeland

The Pertha Hills are the homeland of Glinda's family, the Arduennas of the Uplands. Glinda's family continues to prefer rural Gillikin, with its fox haunts, its dripping dells, its secluded ancient pagan temples to Lurline. To them, Shiz is a distant urban threat, and even the convenience of rail transportation hasn't tempted them to risk all its complications, curiosities, and evil ways. The hills are also the source of Glinda's best milliner, from whom she bought the lovely roundel hat that Elphaba tries on, a hat with orangey swags and a yellow lace net.

Narrative Significance

The Pertha Hills represent the sheltered, conservative, and privileged world that Glinda leaves behind when she goes to Shiz. They are the physical and social landscape of her naivete, a place where she was the center of attention and where her family's status was unquestioned. The hills also provide the setting for Glinda's crucial lie about Ama Clutch, a lie that binds her to Elphaba as a roommate and sets in motion the central relationships of her university years. The hills are thus both a symbol of lost innocence and the origin point of a deception that reshapes Glinda's life.