The Pearl Diver

Once upon a time there was a pearl diver called Tiago who lived in faraway Portugal. Unlike everyone else, he didn’t go out every day into the fields or out to sea to earn his living; instead, from dawn until dusk he ran and exercised, to make sure that he kept his body in top form.

Tiago, you see, took part in a traditional pearl dive that was held once every year, and he always collected more pearls than anyone else. When he sold them afterwards, he made so much money that he didn’t need to work for the rest of the year. And so he had plenty of time to exercise and keep fit, so that he could be the best pearl diver again the following year.

The annual pearl dive was organised by the queen, Branca de Guadalajara. The tradition had begun when some Spanish sailors had returned from a voyage and brought the queen a huge and unusually beautiful pearl. They had called it Peregrina, which means the Pilgrim.

Because Branca was a wise and benevolent sovereign, she wanted to thank her subjects for their services. And the beautiful pearl gave her the idea that she could organise a pearl dive.

The only problem was that there are no pearls near the Portuguese coastline. So each year the queen had one of her squires fetch a crate of pearls from the Pacific Ocean and, on the allotted day, sail out with them a short distance from the coast. There, he would throw all the pearls into the water. Anyone who was brave enough could then dive into the sea to collect the pearls from the seabed, and any they found were theirs to keep.

When Tiago won the pearl dive for…