The author is one of Portugal's greatest poets and, like her poetry,
these stories are filled with her delight and pleasure in nature,
gardens and the sea, as well as her keen sense of the magical. Among
other things, we encounter dwarves, diminutive little girls who live on
the sea bed, plants that come alive at night, a tree that lives on long
after it has been felled, and a pilgrim who discovers much more than the
Holy Land. Her themes are, above all, loyalty and friendship.