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The Psammead
The Psammead
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The Psammead, or the Gifts was originally published as stories to the Strand Magazine in 1900. The three resulting stories in the trilogy are expanded versions of those stories. They include Five Children and It (1902), The Phoenix and the Carpet (1904) and the Story of the Amulet (1906).
These childrens stories involve five children who move to the countryside and find a magical fairy that initially grants them wishes, however each one goes terribly wrong. Then they get a new carpet for the play room and find an egg inside which hatches into a Phoenix and turns the carpet into a magical and fantastic ride. The Phoenix also gives comical resulting wishes. Finally, Psammead returns for the final episode and the children experience adventure and excitement as they delve into the world of fantastic happenings.
Five Children and It. Like Nesbit's Railway Children, the story begins when a group of children move from London to the countryside of Kent. While playing in a gravel pit, the five children--Robert, Anthea, Cyril, Jane, and their baby brother, the Lamb--uncover a rather grumpy, ugly and occasionally malevolent sand-fairy known as the Psammead, who has the ability to grant wishes. However, the Psammead has been buried for so long, he is no longer able to grant individual wishes. Instead, he persuades the children to take one wish per day, to share amongst the lot of them, with the caveat that the wishes will turn to stone at sundown. This, apparently, used to be the rule in the Stone Age, when all children wished for was food, the bones of which would then become fossils. However, when the children's first wish--to be "as beautiful as the day"--ends at sundown, it simply vanishes, leading the Psammead to observe that some wishes are too fanciful to be changed to stone.
All the wishes go comically wrong. When the children wish to be beautiful, the servants don't recognize them and shut them out of the house. When they wish to be rich, they find themselves with a gravel-pit full of gold spade guineas that no shop will accept as it is no longer in circulation, so they can't buy anything. A wish for wings seems to be going well, but at sunset the children find themselves stuck atop a church bell tower with no way down, getting them into trouble with the church gamekeeper who must take them home (though this wish has the happy side-effect of introducing the gamekeeper to the children's housemaid, who later marries him). After being bullied by the baker's boy, Robert wishes that he was bigger, whereupon he becomes eleven feet tall and the children show him at a traveling fair for coins. They also wish themselves into a castle, only to learn it's being besieged, while a wish to meet real Red Indians ends with the children nearly being scalped.
The Phoenix and the Carpet. This middle volume of the trilogy that began with Five Children and It and concludes with The Story of the Amulet deviates somewhat from the other two because the Psammead gets only a brief mention, and because in this volume the children live with both of their parents and their younger brother—the Lamb—in their home in London. Consequently, there is less loneliness and sense of loss in this volume than in the other two. In both of the other volumes, circumstances have forced the children to spend a protracted period away from their familiar London home and their father; in Amulet, their mother and the Lamb are absent as well.
A continuing theme throughout The Phoenix and the Carpet is, appropriately enough, the ancient element of fire. The story begins shortly before November 5, celebrated in England as Guy Fawkes Night. Traditionally, children light bonfires and set off fireworks on this night. The four children have accumulated a small hoard of fireworks but are too impatient to wait until November 5 to light them, so they set off a few samples in the nursery. This results in a fire that destroys the carpet.
Their parents purchase a second-hand carpet which, upon arrival, is found to contain an egg that emits a weird phosphorescent glow. The children accidentally knock this egg into the fire: it hatches, revealing a golden Phoenix who speaks perfect English.
It develops that this is a magical carpet, which can transport the children to anywhere they wish in the present time, although it is only capable of three wishes per day. Accompanied by the Phoenix, the children have exotic adventures in various climes. There is one moment of terror for the children when their youngest brother, the Lamb, crawls onto the carpet, babbles some incoherent baby talk, and vanishes. Fortunately, the Lamb only desired to be with his mother.
The Story of the Amulet. At the beginning of this book the children's father, a journalist, has gone overseas to cover the war in Manchuria. Their mother has gone to Madeira to recuperate from an illness, taking with her their younger brother, the Lamb.
These childrens stories involve five children who move to the countryside and find a magical fairy that initially grants them wishes, however each one goes terribly wrong. Then they get a new carpet for the play room and find an egg inside which hatches into a Phoenix and turns the carpet into a magical and fantastic ride. The Phoenix also gives comical resulting wishes. Finally, Psammead returns for the final episode and the children experience adventure and excitement as they delve into the world of fantastic happenings.
Five Children and It. Like Nesbit's Railway Children, the story begins when a group of children move from London to the countryside of Kent. While playing in a gravel pit, the five children--Robert, Anthea, Cyril, Jane, and their baby brother, the Lamb--uncover a rather grumpy, ugly and occasionally malevolent sand-fairy known as the Psammead, who has the ability to grant wishes. However, the Psammead has been buried for so long, he is no longer able to grant individual wishes. Instead, he persuades the children to take one wish per day, to share amongst the lot of them, with the caveat that the wishes will turn to stone at sundown. This, apparently, used to be the rule in the Stone Age, when all children wished for was food, the bones of which would then become fossils. However, when the children's first wish--to be "as beautiful as the day"--ends at sundown, it simply vanishes, leading the Psammead to observe that some wishes are too fanciful to be changed to stone.
All the wishes go comically wrong. When the children wish to be beautiful, the servants don't recognize them and shut them out of the house. When they wish to be rich, they find themselves with a gravel-pit full of gold spade guineas that no shop will accept as it is no longer in circulation, so they can't buy anything. A wish for wings seems to be going well, but at sunset the children find themselves stuck atop a church bell tower with no way down, getting them into trouble with the church gamekeeper who must take them home (though this wish has the happy side-effect of introducing the gamekeeper to the children's housemaid, who later marries him). After being bullied by the baker's boy, Robert wishes that he was bigger, whereupon he becomes eleven feet tall and the children show him at a traveling fair for coins. They also wish themselves into a castle, only to learn it's being besieged, while a wish to meet real Red Indians ends with the children nearly being scalped.
The Phoenix and the Carpet. This middle volume of the trilogy that began with Five Children and It and concludes with The Story of the Amulet deviates somewhat from the other two because the Psammead gets only a brief mention, and because in this volume the children live with both of their parents and their younger brother—the Lamb—in their home in London. Consequently, there is less loneliness and sense of loss in this volume than in the other two. In both of the other volumes, circumstances have forced the children to spend a protracted period away from their familiar London home and their father; in Amulet, their mother and the Lamb are absent as well.
A continuing theme throughout The Phoenix and the Carpet is, appropriately enough, the ancient element of fire. The story begins shortly before November 5, celebrated in England as Guy Fawkes Night. Traditionally, children light bonfires and set off fireworks on this night. The four children have accumulated a small hoard of fireworks but are too impatient to wait until November 5 to light them, so they set off a few samples in the nursery. This results in a fire that destroys the carpet.
Their parents purchase a second-hand carpet which, upon arrival, is found to contain an egg that emits a weird phosphorescent glow. The children accidentally knock this egg into the fire: it hatches, revealing a golden Phoenix who speaks perfect English.
It develops that this is a magical carpet, which can transport the children to anywhere they wish in the present time, although it is only capable of three wishes per day. Accompanied by the Phoenix, the children have exotic adventures in various climes. There is one moment of terror for the children when their youngest brother, the Lamb, crawls onto the carpet, babbles some incoherent baby talk, and vanishes. Fortunately, the Lamb only desired to be with his mother.
The Story of the Amulet. At the beginning of this book the children's father, a journalist, has gone overseas to cover the war in Manchuria. Their mother has gone to Madeira to recuperate from an illness, taking with her their younger brother, the Lamb.
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