How the Giantess Guimara Became Small

The giant was greatly surprised. He suspected that his daughter had meddled with the affair.

The next day he sent for D. Joaõ and said to him, “O little man, they tell me that you say that in a single night you are able to change the Isle of Wild Beasts into a beautiful garden full of all sorts of flowers and with a silvery fountain in the centre.”

“I never said any such thing, your majesty,” replied D. Joaõ.

He told Guimara about it and she said that it would be great fun to escape from her room that night and make over the Isle of the Wild Beasts into a lovely garden.

Accordingly Guimara worked hard all night long helping D. Joaõ to make the Isle of the Wild Beasts over into a garden full of all sorts of beautiful flowers and with a silvery fountain in the centre. The king was greatly surprised to see the garden in the morning and he was very angry at Guimara and D. Joaõ.

Guimara was so frightened at her father’s terrible wrath that she decided to run away with D. Joaõ. She counselled him to procure the best horse from her father’s stable for them to ride.

At midnight Guimara crept out of her room and ran to the place where D. Joaõ was waiting for her with the horse, which travelled one hundred leagues at each step. They mounted the horse and rode away.

Early the next morning the princess Guimara was missed from the royal palace. Soon it was discovered that D. Joaõ was gone too, and also the best horse from the stables. The giant talked over the matter with his wife. She told him to take another horse which could travel a hundred leagues a step and go after them as fast as he could. The giant followed his wife’s advice, and soon he had nearly caught up with the fugitives, for they had grown tired and had stopped to rest.

Guimara spied her father coming and turned herself into a little river. She turned D. Joaõ into an old negro, the horse into a tree, the saddle into a bed of onions, and the musket they carried into a butterfly.

When the giant came to the river he called out to the old negro who was taking a bath, “O, my old negro, have you seen anything of a little man accompanied by a handsome young woman?