By the grace of God, conferred on Princes four, they share Earth’s burden:
Theirs the glory, hers the guerdon.
It happened one day that two princes came walking over the earth of each in the other’s direction.
 
One of them came from the North, the other from the South. They were both tall, taller than men, taller than any champion of romance. They carried their heads royally and high and set their feet firmly upon the ground, as if it belonged to them.
 
The one who came from the North was the elder. He was an old man with a might of white hair and beard; his naked breast was shaggy, shaggy his legs and hands. He looked strong and wild, with cold, stern eyes.
 
The one who came from the South was young, but no less powerful than the other. His face and hands were burned by the sun, his eyes strong and gentle as the sun. Over his shoulder he wore a purple cloak, round his loins a golden girdle. In the girdle was a wonderful red rose.
 
When the princes saw each other from afar, they stopped for a moment and then walked quickly on again, as though they longed to meet. But, when they had come a little closer to each other, they both stood still once more. The young one shivered when he met the old one’s glance; and the sweat sprang to the old one’s brow when the young one looked at him.
 
They stood thus for a time. Then they sat down, each upon a mountain, and gazed at each other and waited for a while in silence.
 
The young one was the first to speak:
 
“You are Winter, I presume?” he asked.
 
The old one nodded:
 
“I am Winter, the lord of the earth,” he answered.
 
The young one laughed till the mountains rang:
 
“Are you really?” said he. “And I am Summer, the lord of the earth.”
 
They sat again for a while and measured each other with angry glances.
 
Then Winter said:
 
“I came out to meet you and talk to you. But I do not like you.”
 
“I came intending to talk you into your senses,” said Summer. “But I can hardly bear to look at you, you are so grim and ugly.”
 
“Shall we divide the earth between us?” asked Winter. “You come everywhere with your namby-pamby sunshine and melt my ice and plant your flowers. I , as you know. I your creatures in snow and spoil your pleasure. We are both equally strong: shall we conclude a peace?”
 
“What would that lead to?” asked Summer, suspiciously.
 
“Each of us must keep to his own,” replied Winter. “I have my ice-castle in the North, where you can never come, and you have your sun-palace down in the South, where my sway does not reach. 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 a green spot in your snow ... even though it be but for a day.”
 
“You are , because you are in luck’s way for the moment,” replied Winter. “But you should remember that the times may change. I was the more powerful once and I may become so again. Do not forget that I am born of the eternal, unutterable cold of space.”
 
“And I am the child of the sun and was powerful before you,” said Summer, proudly.
 
Winter passed his fingers through his beard; and an came rushing down the mountain-side.
 
“Ugh!” said Summer and wrapped himself closer in his purple cloak.
 
“Would you like to see my might?” asked Winter.
 
He raised his arms in the air; and, then and there, the mountain on which he sat was quite transformed. A wild, storm roared over it; and the snow swept down from the sky. A which had been leaping over the slope turned suddenly to ice; and the waterfall which sang and hummed over the fell silent at once and its water froze into yard-long icicles. When it ceased snowing, the mountain was white from top to foot.
 
“Now it’s my turn,” said Summer.
 
He took the rose from his girdle and flung it on the mountain whereon he sat; and forthwith the loveliest roses shot up from the ground. They nodded in the breeze from the point of every rock and filled the valleys with their and their colours. In every bush sat merry nightingales and sang; and from the flower-stalks heavy dew-drops hung and gleamed in the sun.
 
“Well?” said Summer.
 
Winter forward and stared hard at the loveliest rose of them all. Then the dew-drop that hung under the flower froze into an icicle. The bird that sat in its branches and sang fell stiff and frozen to the ground; and the rose itself and died.
 
“Well?” said Winter.
 
But Summer stood up and looked with his gentle eyes at Winter’s mountain, at the place where the snow lay deepest. And, on the spot at which he looked, the snow melted and from out the ground sprang the largest and loveliest Christmas rose that any one could hope to set eyes upon.
 
In this wise, the two princes could make no way against each other.
 
The day wore on; evening came and night. The moon shone upon the splendid snow-clad mountain, which gleamed and glittered like diamonds. Across from Summer’s mountain sounded the nightingale’s song; and the of the roses filled all the fair space around.
 
The next morning, just as the sun was rising, two other princes came walking towards the place where Winter and Summer sat glaring at each other.
 
One of............