Once upon a time[1] two poor Woodcutters went home through a great pine-forest. It was winter, and a night of bitter cold. The snow was upon the ground, and upon the branches of the trees. The frost snapped the little twigs on their sides, as they passed. The mountain river was motionless in air, because the Ice-King kissed her. So cold was it that even the animals and the birds did not know what to do.
‘Ugh!’ snarled the Wolf, as he limped through the brushwood with his tail between his legs, ‘this is really monstrous weather. Why doesn’t the Government look to it?[2]’
‘Weet! weet! weet!’ twittered the green Linnets, ‘the old Earth is dead and she has her white shroud on.’
‘The Earth will marry soon, and this is her bridal dress,’ whispered the Doves to each other. Their little pink feet were quite frozen, but they felt that it was their duty to speak romantically.
‘Nonsense!’ growled the Wolf. ‘I tell you that it is all the fault of the Government. If you don’t believe me I shall eat you.’
The Wolf had a very practical mind, and always had a good argument.
‘Well, as for me,’ said the Woodpecker, who was a philosopher, ‘I don’t care[3] an atomic theory for explanations. If a thing is so, it is so. At present it is terribly cold.’
Terribly cold it certainly was. The little Squirrels, who lived inside the tall fir-tree, rubbed each other’s noses to get some warm. The Rabbits curled themselves up in their holes, and did not look out of doors. The only people who enjoyed it were the Owls. Their feathers were quite stiff with rime[4], but they did not mind[5]. They rolled their large yellow eyes, and cried across the forest,
‘Tu-whit! Tu-whoo! Tu-whit! Tu-whoo! What delightful weather!’
The two Woodcutters went on. They blew lustily upon their fingers, and stamped with their huge boots upon the caked snow. Once they sank into a deep drift, and came out as white as millers. Once they slipped on the hard smooth ice where the marsh-water was frozen. Their faggots fell out of their bundles, and they picked them up and bound them together again. Once they lost their way, and they were very afraid. They knew that the Snow is cruel to those who sleep in the wood. But they retraced their steps, and went warily. At last they reached the outskirts of the forest. They saw, far down in the valley beneath them, the lights of the village in which they dwelt.
They were overjoyed at their deliverance. They laughed aloud, and they saw the Earth like a flower of silver, and the Moon like a flower of gold.
But then they became sad, because they remembered their poverty. One of them said to the other,
‘Why do we laugh? This life is for the rich, and not for us. Why did not we die of cold in the forest? Why did not some wild beast eat us?’
‘Truly,’ answered his companion, ‘the rich have everything, the others have nothing. There is injustice in the world, there is eternal sorrow in it.’
But as they bewailed their misery to each other this strange thing happened. A very bright and beautiful star fell from heaven. It slipped down the side of the sky, passed by the other stars, and fell into the wood – not very far from them.
‘Look! It is a good piece of gold for whoever finds it,’ they cried, and began to run. They wanted to get some gold.
One of them ran faster than his mate, and outstripped him. He ran through the willows, and lo! there was indeed a piece of gold on the white snow. So he hastened towards it, and placed his hands upon it. It was a golden cloak, it had stars on it. And he cried out to his comrade:
‘Look! I see a treasure from the sky!’
When his comrade came near, they sat down in the snow, and loosened the folds of the cloak to divide the pieces of gold. But, alas! no gold was in it, nor silver, nor, indeed, any treasure. Only a little child who was asleep.
And one of them said to the other:
‘This is the end to our hope. This child is completely useless for us. Let us leave it here[6], and go away. We are poor men, and have children of our own.’
But his companion answered him:
‘No, but it is an evil thing to leave the child to perish here in the snow. I am as poor as you are, and have many mouths to feed. But I want to bring this child home with me. My wife will have care of it[7].’
He took up the child tenderly, and wrapped the cloak around it. Then he went down the hill to the village.
‘What a fool!’ thought his comrade.
When they came to the village, his comrade said to him,
‘You have the child, therefore give me the cloak.’
But he answered him:
‘No, for the cloak is neither mine nor yours, but the child’s only.’
And he went to his own house and knocked.
When his wife opened the door and saw her husband, she put her arms round his neck and kissed him. Then she took from his back the bundle of faggots, and brushed the snow off his boots.
But he said to her,
‘I found something in the forest. Look! It is here, take care of it.’
‘What is it?’ his wife cried. ‘Show it to me, we are poor, we need many things.’
