There was once a King who lived in the north country, far, far to the north where the snow lies deep three seasons of the year. But the fourth season is summer, and then the people rejoice because the sun shines all the day and most of the night, and the world is fresh and green. The King lived in a little palace built of white stones, set in a snowy valley ringed round by the tall, snow-clad mountains. The road to the palace passed through a deep forest of pines that were forever whispering their secrets to one another. In this forest dwelt the gnomes and fairies, who sometimes made mischief for the folk up at the palace. But the King had wisely appointed a steward to watch over them, and every month at the full moon he sent the steward into the forest with rich gifts. For the mistress of these little folk was a powerful witch, whom nobody had ever seen, and it would not do to stand badly with her.

         The King had travelled abroad in his youth, and there he had acquired a taste for courtly gardens, such as never had been seen in his native land. He had caused a large area to be cleared on the hillside before the palace, and there he had made a garden that was his very pride and joy. The garden had fountains of clear water that spurted high into the air from golden basins; it had beds of bright flowers and borders of shrubbery so green and smooth you would have thought them to be sculpted from clay. But the north country is cold, very cold, and for most of the year the beautiful garden lay hidden under the snow. The fountains were frozen into silence, the flowers slept underground, the shrubbery was all muffled in a white cloak. There was not a bit of green to be seen anywhere. Then the King was sick at heart, and he took counsel with the Queen, who was a pretty and a clever woman, much given to laughter, for he had met her and married her in that country where the gardens bloom all the year long. 'You must make the best of it,' said the Queen, smiling at him in her winning way. 'If we cannot have an ordinary garden, why then, surely we may have a snow garden, and that will be a hundred times lovelier. Besides, it will be the only one of its kind in all the world.' Then the King was happy again. He met with his architect and together they devised a wonderful plan. The walkways of the garden were cleared and sanded, but the snow all around them was left untouched. Then large smooth pedestals were set in place, at even intervals along the curving paths. The King called his sculptor and ordered many beautiful statues to be carved from the plentiful ice, and set upon the pedestals for all to see. These statues were far more beautiful than ordinary statues of mere stone, even more beautiful than those of marble, for they were made of living water. When the sun shone upon them they glowed like fire.  When the moon shone upon them they glittered like diamonds. And when the white mountain mist enshrouded them, they shone with a soft blue light that was perhaps the loveliest of all.

          Now the King had a daughter, whose name was Waltrauta. She was as beautiful as the day, but as she had lived all her life in the shadow of the mountains, in the mist and the snow, surrounded by a dangerous wood, she was of a rather melancholy disposition. For companionship she had only her little dog, Fritz. Fritz was a snow-white dog, with a mane of shaggy fur that stood out like a courtier's ruff around his sharp-nosed doggy face. He wore a blue leather collar studded with jewels, and his eyes were black, and brighter even than the jewels in the collar. Every day the Princess and Fritz went for a walk in the snow garden, round and round in the snow and ice, in the wind and the wild wet weather. The Princess wore a hooded mantle of white fur from which her little face peeped out like a Christmas rose, and she and Fritz were as alike as two creatures can be when one is a Princess and the other is only a little dog.

          Of course the Princess must have had a motive for so many walks in such bad weather, beyond a desire for exercise or an appreciation of the aesthetics of snow gardening. I'd just as soon admit it to you at once - the Princess was in love, and that with no ordinary mortal but with one of the ice-graven gods in her father's garden. It was the god Hermes to whom she had lost her heart. He was young and beautiful to look upon, in appearance perhaps a year or two older than the Princess, although in fact he had only been made that year. Every day the Princess stood motionless in the snow, gazing up at his smooth body with the slight bend at the hips, his cruel, handsome face with its fine Grecian nose and noble brow, and his cap of transparent curls. Every day Fritz growled at the back of his throat until finally he could no longer restrain his natural feelings - he must bark at this icy interloper. Then the Princess tapped him soundly on the nose and bid him hush his noise, and they passed on through the garden.

          The Princess Waltrauta grew sad and solemn. It is never an easy thing to be in love for the first time - how much worse when the object of one's passion is a man of ice! The King and Queen observed their daughter's sorry state and realised something must be done. They sent for the Royal Physician to examine the Princess, but he found her to be in perfect health, aside from a slight cough she had developed from standing about in the cold. He recommended that she be married as soon as possible, for in those days marriage was often prescribed as a medicine and was believed to be efficacious against all sorts of ills, from a nervous stomach to a broken heart. Perhaps it is so - I don't know.

          When the Princess heard of the plan she was desperate.  Unable to advance any reason against it, she only threw herself on her mother's breast and wept. Naturally enough, this seemed to her parents more reason than ever to go ahead with the plan, and it wasn't long before the betrothal of the Princess Waltrauta to Prince Otto of the Black Forest was announced in the land.

          How the Princess wept! Day and night upon her bed of blue silk. She no longer went walking in the snow garden, for what was the use? Soon she would be far away in the Black Forest. Fritz lay quietly at the foot of the bed and kept watch over her. When the Princess had cried for three days and three nights she went once more into the garden. She gazed and gazed upon her beloved god, and her bosom rose and fell, and her face blushed pink like a hothouse rose. Then the god turned, ever so slightly, towards her. His lips parted in a cruel smile - he was about to speak. But Fritz leaped at him with an indignant bark, and the smile vanished as if it had never been. The Princess and Fritz returned to the palace.

          My but the Princess was angry! She beat the little dog with her silk slipper upon his tender nose (a thing she had never done before). It smarted so the tears sprang to his eyes, but when it was over he licked her hand, did little Fritz. The Princess pushed him away roughly. Then she stood for a long time at the window looking out, not at the garden, for that was on the other side of the palace, but towards the dark forest where the pine trees whispered to one another under the shadow of the hills.

          The next day she went alone into the forest, taking care to shut Fritz up in the her room beforehand. She went to the place where the steward always left the gifts for the fairies - it was not hard to find, for it was well known to all the folk in those parts, and marked by a circle of stones. The stones were all mantled in snow, and the snow was dinted with hundreds of tiny footprints where the fairies had been dancing. The Princess sat down upon a stone to wait. She waited and waited for ever so long, but nobody came to see what she was doing there. The white mist swirled under the trees, the pine boughs whispered to one another in a language she did not understand at all. The Princess grew as cold as the stone upon which she sat. Fortunately, she had brought a piece of bread and butter in her cloak with which to refresh herself. Judging that the time was ripe, and that she could not grow any colder or hungrier than she already was, she took it out and began to eat.

          A great black raven came flapping down from a tree and stood before the Princess. 'Give it to me!' cried the raven.

          'Are you hungry, my dear?' said the Princess, pausing in the middle of her first bite. For she was really a very good-hearted girl.

          'Give it to me, to me, to me!' screamed the raven, hopping up and down in a frenzy of impatience and rasping its rusty old wings together like two skinny black hands. All the time it was looking at her with its nasty yellow eyes.          The Princess, thoroughly frightened, threw the bread upon the ground, where the raven instantly seized it and devoured it in one bite (which was not very good manners). No sooner had the bread been swallowed than there, in the place of the raven, stood an ugly old witch with yellow eyes, her black cloak flapping in the wind, her skinny black hands rasping together in the cold.

          'What do you want, Princess?' said the Witch in her croaking voice.

          'My parents wish me to marry Prince Otto of the Black Forest,' said the Princess, 'but I care only for the beautiful god in the snow garden. Give him to me for my husband!'

          'What payment?' cried the Witch.

          'Anything you wish. I can bring you gold or jewels...anything.'

          'There are only two jewels in your possession that interest me,' said the Witch. 'Bring me the eyes of your little dog, Fritz, and you shall have your heart's desire.' And she held out to the Princess a little silver knife. The Princess took the knife with a trembling hand, and the Witch, with a loud Croak! turned once again into a raven and flew away over the treetops.

          Now you must not think that when the Princess Waltrauta took the knife there was any thought in her mind of carrying out the Witch's command. She had merely reached for it in that instinctive way we always reach for whatever is held out to us, be it good or evil. Now that she had the knife in her possession she could not dream of using it. She hid it away among her trinkets and tried to think of it no more. Meanwhile the wedding day drew closer and closer. The Queen was occupied with the trousseau, the King with the dowry. The Princess was to have a dozen gowns embroidered in gold, and a dozen in silver. She was to have a hundred bags of gold, and a hundred of silver. Or should it be two hundred? The negotiations went on and on, the first guests had already arrived, the meats were roasting, the cakes were baking, and the entire palace was turned upside down. Only the Princess was unmoved by all the uproar. She lay all day long quietly upon her bed. She was pale as a lily, and her eyes were dark with a terrible suffering. Her people were too busy with the preparations to remark her distress. But Fritz lay always at the foot of her bed and kept watch over her.

          At last the eve of the wedding arrived. The palace was full from top to bottom with wedding guests, it was bursting with sweet and savoury odours, with laughter, music, and running footsteps. The Princess had made up her mind to die that very night - her heart was breaking for love of the beautiful god. She locked the door to her room and took the silver knife from the box where she had hidden it. It was a plain little knife with a thin blade, very sharp. She opened the front of her dress and prepared to plunge the knife into her heart. But Fritz had been watching her closely all this time. Now he came and put his paws in her lap, and, looking up into her face with his bright eyes, he spoke to her.

          'Please Princess, take my eyes. What use are my eyes to me, but to look upon you, my Princess?'     The Princess started back in surprise; then she caressed the top of his doggy head.

          'Oh, Fritz! I always thought you could speak if you wanted to. No, my dear Fritz. Let me die. My heart is broken.'

          'Take my eyes, Princess. Please, please...they shall be of no use to me once you are gone. Please...take my eyes.' Then the Princess thought of the beautiful god, of his cruel, handsome face and smooth skin that glimmered like smoke under the winter sky. She thought of the wedding and the fleshy, red-faced Prince Otto, and a wave of sickness came over her. She thought of Death - of her own young body lying still and cold, without life or light, and the ants crawling over her frozen face. Quickly she took the knife and cut out the dog's eyes. She folded them in a napkin and hastened away to the wood. As she sat upon the stone, waiting for the Witch to come, she wept bitter tears for what she had done. 'But he was only a dog, after all,' she said, to comfort herself. 'Only a dog, a dog.' But still she wept.

          At last the Witch appeared, and examined the contents of the bloody napkin. She seemed well pleased with what she found there. 'You're a bold girl,' said the Witch. 'You shall have your heart's desire.' She handed the Princess a little pot of ointment. 'Rub this on the statue from head to toe and you shall have your wish.'  And with that, she flew away over the treetops.

          The Princess hurried to the garden. It lay peaceful under the snow. The gods in their graceful poses glittered like diamonds in the moonlight. The Princess climbed the pedestal to her beloved god and began to rub him all over with the precious ointment. The Witch's remedy was clear and colourless, but with a sweet overpowering scent like a whole rose garden in bloom. It glided easily over the beautiful icy limbs. Soon the Princess's fingers were stiff with cold, and her head was reeling from the sweet perfume. When she had done with the ointment she stepped down to observe the god, but could see no change. She supposed then that the spell must require some little time to take effect, and retired to her room to await the results.

          The room seemed sadly empty without Fritz. She wondered where he had gone - there was no sign of him anywhere about the palace. Exhausted by her adventure, she lay down on the bed and soon fell fast asleep.

          The God came to her in the stillness of the night. Silently he walked through the moonlit garden, silently mounted the stairs to the palace.  He entered her room and sat upon her bed. He stroked her cheek with his icy hand. She awoke suddenly and saw him, glittering like diamonds in the moonlight, his eyes like moonstones in the dark. He leaned across the bed, his cruel handsome face drew closer, closer...with his cruel smiling icy lips he kissed her and a taste of fire entered her mouth, but it was cold and not heat that burned her. He lay with her and burned her, and there was a smell of ashes and roses. Again and again he burned her until her desire was all consumed, and at last she slept.

          The wedding day dawned bright and sunny. The Princess had never been more beautiful - she smiled and smiled, and blushed pink as a rose. She seemed to have forgotten all her dark moods, and the King and Queen congratulated one another on having hit upon the solution to their daughter's unhappiness. The bride was arrayed in a gown of white silk, embroidered all over with gold and pearls. She didn't mind the wedding at all, now that she had the lover she craved. 'I shall tell my father I want that statue for a parting gift, and he shall certainly give it to me,' she thought. 'And then he shall come to me every night...' Before the ceremony she thought to take a last turn in the snow garden. She looked about for Fritz, but then remembered he had gone. Everyone else was far too busy that day to remark upon his absence, for he was, after all, only a dog. As she passed out into the hall she heard the servants talking together.

          'It's a blessing on them,' said the old footman. 'That's what it is.' The parlour maid nodded in agreement.

          'It’s a blessing indeed, such a sun as this!' she said.

          'I tell you, this is the warmest April day in these hills since I was a boy, and that's a good long time,' replied the footman.

          The Princess passed out into the garden. The air was fresh and clear, and warm as a summer's day. From all sides came the tinkle of running water – everywhere the snow was melting. In the garden it had been drawn back like a veil to reveal the wet brown face of the earth. And the gods, the beautiful gods, were all of them melting. The god Hermes was now a shapeless lump of ice in which one might still trace the outline of a cruel, smiling mouth.

          With a cry of rage the Princess sank down upon the muddy path and wept. She heard them calling her for the wedding vows, and away she ran into the forest, her eyes blind with weeping, her silk dress now torn and soiled. As she stumbled through the forest she came upon a man who lay all huddled up as if in pain. He lay beside a stream where he had come to bathe his wounds, for a great bloody bandage was wound about his head, and quite covered his eyes. Forgetting her own sorrow for a moment, the Princess knelt down beside him. She unwound the bandage that she might dip it into the stream, and as she did so she saw that the man's eyes had been gouged right out of his head.

          'Who has dared to do such a thing?' she cried in amazement.

          'Not who, Princess, but what,' said the man.

          'What then? Is it a monster or a wild beast has treated you so?'

          'Yes,' said the man, with a little smile. 'A monster indeed, a wild beast indeed. It was Love dared to treat me so.'

          'You talk in riddles,' said the Princess, winding the bandage once more round his head.

          'No, Princess, no riddles. I gave the eyes out of my head for love. Others have given more. The very heart out of the body, even the soul itself.'

          Meanwhile, back at the palace, the wedding party was in terrible disarray. Prince Otto had left in a huff, the King and Queen were fit to die for shame, and the guests were busy eating up all the food and speculating on the whereabouts of the bride. Imagine the surprise of all and sundry when the Princess appeared at the door in her ruined wedding finery, supporting on her arm a dirty, dishevelled blind man with a bandage round his eyes.

          "I will have no man but this for my husband," she said. "I have been a monster, I have been a wild beast. Now, with God's grace, I may learn to be a woman at last."

          They were married that day, and all who heard the story marvelled at it. For the blind man was a King in his own country, and had served the Princess faithfully as her little dog Fritz, that she might one day learn to love him. And he always said, he counted his eyes as well lost, that he might ever have the Princess at his side. For he who saves his life shall lose it, but he who loses his life - his name is written down in the Golden Book by God's angels and shall be read out loud and clear on the Judgement Day.