It told the children--whose names were Cyril, Robert, Anthea, and Jane--that it was a Psammead or sand-fairy.
(Psammead is pronounced Sammy-ad.) It was old, old, old, and its birthday was almost at the very beginning of everything.

And it had been buried in the sand for thousands of years.

But it still kept its fairylikeness, and part of this fairylikeness was its power to give people whatever they wished for.

You know fairies have always been able to do this.

Cyril, Robert, Anthea, and Jane now found their wishes come true; but, somehow, they never could think of just the right things to wish for, and their wishes sometimes turned out very oddly indeed.