Carl Ewald

“ The lime-trees turned bright yellow and the beech bronze, but the elder-tree even blacker than it had been. The bell-flower rang with white bells, where it used to ring with blue, and the chestnut-tree blessed all the world with its five yellow fingers. The mountain-ash shed its leaves that all might admire its pretty berries; the wild rose nodded with a hundred hips; the Virginia creeper broke over the hedge in blazing flames. ”

“ The stag [59] belled in the glade, before even the sun was up, and the hind answered and sprang. Every second, the fish leapt in the water; and there was no end to the croaking of the frogs in the ditch. The snake wriggled along the edge of the brook and made play with his tongue; in every hedge sat small brown mice exchanging amorous looks. Even the flies buzzed more fondly than usual.
But, when the gladness was at its highest, the young Prince of Spring stood at the top of the valley, where the mountains enclose it towards the North. He looked out over his kingdom. ”

“ Down below in the valley stood the Prince of Spring, young and straight, in his green garb, with the lute slung over his shoulder. His long hair flowed in the wind, his face was soft and round, his mouth was ever smiling, his eyes were dreamy and moist.
“You come too soon!” shouted Winter.
But Spring bowed low and replied:
“I come by our appointment.”
“You come too soon!” shouted Winter again. “I am not nearly done. I have a thousand bags full of snow and my gales [29] are just as strong and biting as they were in January.” ”

“ See, when I come to the valley and touch the strings of my lute and sing to it and the flowers spring up from the mould: then the wailing relaxes in men’s hearts even as in the cold ground. Then they sing and flourish and thrive and laugh; and love is kindled in their thoughts ”

“ But high through the murk shone Spring’s green garb; and louder than storm and thunder rang his song. Earth and air and water sang with him: the poorest blade of grass beneath the snow, the crow in the wood, the worm in the mould, each of them joined in the song according to its power. Even the trees that fell in the forest under the onslaught of the storm confessed Spring in the hour of their death:
Thou knowest it were best to yield to save thy might from falling ”

“ Mine is the thunder that roars [71] over the valley. Hark!... The echo rolls from the mountains; the earth rumbles under my foot: it is Summer coming.”
The thunder ceased, but the rain kept on pouring. And through the rain spoke Summer’s accents; and never had any heard so soft a voice:
“It is I, Summer, who am come to reign over the land. All that is green shall be greener still; all that is fair shall be a thousand-fold fairer. The scent of the flower shall be sweeter yet; and the sound of the bird’s trill shall be deeper and fuller. ”

“ They came at his beck; fear lay over the valley again; and the cries were silenced. The thunder rolled till the mountains shook, the lightning flamed, the rain poured.
[91] And Summer’s great voice sounded through the air:
“Know you not that I am a lord as stern as Winter, whom you hate? He reigns over death, as I do over life. I will be obeyed, like him; like him, I crush whatever resists me. You thought I was a minstrel like Spring, who sang you to life and longing and went off over the mountains. But I am greater than Spring. ”

“ The snow fell and drifted over meadow and hill; sky and earth were blended into one.
This lasted for many days; and those were hard times.
[159] The sparrows did not know at last if they were alive or dead; the crows crept into the pine-forest, silent with hunger and fear. The stag had not found a single tuft of grass for two days past and now leapt belling through the wood, tortured with starvation. The mice crept together in their parlours and froze; the chaffinch froze to death; the hare lay dead in the meadow; the fox ate the hare’s remains and was very thankful to do so. ”

“ Leaves in the grove keep falling.
All the trees of the forest shook from root to top, themselves not knowing why. All the [103] birds fell silent together. The stag in the glade raised his antlers in surprise and listened. The poppy’s scarlet petals flew before the wind.
But high on the mountains and on the bare hills and low down in the bog, the heather burst forth and blazed purple and glorious in the sun. And the bees flew from the faded flowers of the meadow and hid themselves in the heather-fields. ”

“ The crow’s children screamed in the tree-tops; the young eagles flew from the rock to try their [95] wings. The starling drove her first brood from the nest and laid new eggs; the frog lived to see her degenerate young grow quite respectable before she herself was swallowed by the stork.
Never had the fish swarmed so thickly in the river, never had the beech’s leaves been so broad, never had the copsewood been so dense, never had the flowers pressed so close together in the hedge.
And the Prince of Summer stood amidst his kingdom taller and straighter and more radiant than ever:
“It is well!” ”

“ The siskin and his wife hunted twice as eagerly in the thicket; the little brown mice dug twice as diligently; the flowers redoubled their radiance and their fragrance. Goody Mole rummaged the ground in every direction; [94] the stag found a meadow where the grass stood high and green. The beech put forth new twigs in the place of those which the cockchafers had eaten; and the ash stretched its bows right through the honeysuckle to show Summer that it was alive.
Thousands died, but none heard their death-moan, because of the din that arose from the fight of the living. ”

“ Of numberless ice-eggs by frosty rims spanned!
Now rushing, now resting,
White snow-birds, wee snow-birds,
Skim soft through the land!
And Winter’s birds came.
Suddenly, it darkened and the air became full of little black specks, which descended and turned into great white snowflakes. They fell over the ground, more and more, in an endless multitude; all white and silent, they lay side by side and layer upon layer. The carpet over the land grew ever thicker.
[151] The crows and the others took shelter in the forest, while the snow fell, and gazed dejectedly over the valley. ”

“ They no longer swung so carelessly on their stalks, no [74] longer scattered their scent so lavishly to every wind. But, when a bee or a butterfly came flitting up, all the flowers stretched their necks and shed a redoubled radiance and fragrance and cried their honey aloud, so that the insects might come along and take their pollen-ware.
Nor did the bees themselves have so good a time as in the green days of Spring. At home, in the hive, their queen was laying eggs by the hundred; and they had to sweat wax and build cells and fetch honey and pollen, till they were nigh dying with exhaustion. ”

“ Autumn turned a questioning glance towards him; and Spring unfastened his lute again and played and hummed. But the Prince of Summer nodded in assent.
“We are princes by the grace of God,” said Winter. “We have shared the earth among us by turns, according to agreement, so that each of us reigned for a quarter of the year. We [176] have kept the covenant which we made with one another, but the land is no longer ours.”
“That is true,” said Summer.
“We are no longer lords in the land,” said Winter. “Men have seized upon the power.” ”

“ I hate men, as the Prince of Winter hates them. But there is no remedy against their might.”
He ceased speaking. The three princes stared despondently before them. But Spring [184] plucked gaily at the strings of his lute.
Then Winter turned to him and said, roughly:
“You are the only one that has not spoken. What harm do men do you?”
“Tell us!” demanded Autumn.
“Do you hate them as we do?” asked Summer.
The Prince of Spring raised his young face and looked at them as though his thoughts were far away. Then he said: “Men? They cause me no pain.” ”

“ Burst down upon the valley and shatter and destroy all this! Rush over the hills and snap every tree in the forest! Overturn the mountains, if you can, and crush yonder green mountebank beneath them!”
Out rushed the storm; and the snow came. It was awful weather. The trees creaked and crashed and fell, the river overflowed its banks, the foam of the waves spurted right up to the sky, great avalanches of snow poured down the mountain-slope.
[33] But Spring went his way through the valley and sang, in ever fuller and stronger tones:
Let all thy loud winds bluster, let all thy tempest bellow ”

“ Then, one night, it froze.
The slush on the ground hardened into a thin crust, which the stag stuck his hoof through, but the hare ran safely across it. [145] The hedgehog shivered in his dreams, the ivy-flowers faded, the puddles got ice upon them.
And, next morning early, a thin layer of snow fell over the land. The sun shone again, but far and cold; and the clouds drifted away.
The Prince of Winter sat on the mountains: an old man, with white hair and beard. His naked breast was shaggy, shaggy his legs and hands. He looked strong and wild, with cold stern eyes. ”

“ Lo, nowadays the earth is white or green, according as Winter rules or Spring. The thrush sings in the grove and the canary in his cage, the smoke rises from the house-top and the church-bell tolls for evensong. The monk walks in the meadow and the poet writes verse.
But once things were different.
Once things were so that, had somebody taken a walk on the earth, nowhere would a dog have run out of a house and barked at him. For there was not upon all the earth a single dog [xii] to run out of a house nor a single house for a dog to run out of. ”

“ Plenty of plants grew on the earth, but they were queer ones: ferns and horse-tails as tall as the tallest trees in the forest nowadays. There were animals too, but they were strange and uncanny creatures which we never meet with now except in the old fairy-tales. There were quadrupeds that were thirty yards long and swam in [xvii] the water; and there were dragons that flew in the air and looked horrid.
And so it happened that it became ridiculously cold on the greatest part of the earth. Wherever one looked lay ice and snow; and the animals and plants died. ”

“ But now Summer raised his voice:
“Men have the power,” he said, “and we can do nothing to prevent it. They have become too many for us and too clever, as Winter has said. In the beginning, I had nothing against them. They ran in the forest like my other creatures and [181] hunted and fought and bore their children under the foliage. They obeyed the law of life, as I had laid it down, and I granted that to them just as much as to the stag and the sparrow and the worm.” ”

“ Therefore I made my days long, that you should become green and [92] grow. Therefore I gave you strength and power in a thousand ways, the smallest gnat as well as the tallest tree in the forest, so that you should fight and grow up. Therefore I gave you children, so that you should never perish. And whoso obeys my law and well employs the day, upon him the sunlight of my eyes shall fall. His strength shall reign, his children shall bear his name throughout the ages. But whoso flinches, he shall die.”
The Prince of Summer was silent and the thunder rolled away slowly over the mountains. ”

“ When you two move over the earth, Spring and I will always come between you [18] and soften the tracks of the one who is going and clear the way for the one who is coming. In this wise, we will reign for a while, each in his own time and each for a fourth part of the year. We will follow after one another in a circle which shall never be broken nor changed. And thus the poor earth will gain peace and order in her affairs. ”

“ As we cannot bear the sight of each other, we had better lay a broad waste belt between our kingdoms.”
“Nothing shall be waste,” said Summer. “Everything shall be green, as far as I am concerned. I like to wander out of my summer-palace all over the earth and I will carry my light and my heat as far into your ice-fields as I can. I know no greater pleasure than to conjure forth a green spot in your snow ... ”

“ He saw the walnut’s spikes, that smacked of spring. He saw the little brown [155] mice trip out for a run in the snow and disappear again into their snug parlours before his eyes. He distinctly heard the hedgehog snoring in the hedge; and the crows kept on screaming in his ears. Through his own ice, he saw the noses of the frogs stick up from the bottom of the pond. ”

“ And there was the stag, who bellowed because the best grass was gone. To him the Prince of Summer said:
“I gave you swift legs, so that you could bound where the grass is greenest in the forest. If your legs are tired, then lay you down to die; and the hind’s fawns shall walk in your footsteps.”
There were the fish in the river, who ate one another’s eggs [87] and young and then blamed Summer.
“What would you have me do?” asked Summer. “I gave you power to lay a thousand eggs and a thousand more and a thousand besides. However many may die, there will always be fish in the river.” ”

“ The trees shook in their thick bark and the bushes struck their branches together in consternation. The mouse became quite snow-blind, when she peeped outside the door; the stag looked mournfully over the white meadow:
“My muzzle can still break through the ice, when I drink,” he said. “I can still scrape the [147] snow to one side and find a tuft of grass. But, if things go on like this for another week, then it’s all up with me.”
The crows and the chaffinch and the sparrow and the tit had quite lost their voices. ”