Once it was much like other lands, except it was shut in by a dreadful desert of sandy wastes that lay all around it, thus preventing its people from all contact with the rest of the world.

Seeing this isolation, the fairy band of Queen Lurline, passing over Oz while on a journey, enchanted the country and so made it a Fairyland.

And Queen Lurline left one of her fairies to rule this enchanted Land of Oz, and then passed on and forgot all about it.
From that moment no one in Oz ever died.

Those who were old remained old; those who were young and strong did not change as years passed them by; the children remained children always, and played and romped to their hearts' content, while all the babies lived in their cradles and were tenderly cared for and never grew up.

So people in Oz stopped counting how old they were in years, for years made no difference in their appearance and could not alter their station.