terror for the darkness and cold in a human
heart. Darkness sank over the earth, like a coverlet; frost came, all the
growths shrivelled up; the animals and birds hastened away; the rushing of
streams was hushed; the leaves dropped from the trees, rustling like rain.

Abbot Hans felt how his heart, which had but lately swelled with bliss,
was now contracting with insufferable agony. "I can never outlive this,"
thought he, "that the angels from heaven had been so close to me and were
driven away; that they wanted to sing Christmas carols for me and were
driven to flight."

Then he remembered the flower he had promised Bishop Absalon, and at the
last moment he fumbled among the leaves and moss to try and find a
blossom. But he sensed how the ground under his fingers froze and how the
white snow came gliding over the ground. Then his heart caused him ever
greater anguish. He could not rise, but fell prostrate on the ground and
lay there.

When the robber folk and the lay brother had groped their way back to the
cave, they missed Abbot Hans. They took brands with them and went out to
search for him. They found him dead upon the coverlet of snow.

Then the lay brother began weeping and lamenting, for he understood that
it was he who had killed Abbot Hans because he had dashed from him the cup
of happiness which he had been thirsting to drain to its last drop.

When Abbot Hans had been carried down to Oevid, those who took charge of
the dead saw that he held his right hand locked tight around something
which he must have grasped at the moment of death. When they finally got
his hand open, they found that the thing which he had held in such an iron
grip was a pair of white root bulbs, which he had torn from among the moss
and leaves.

When the lay brother who had accompanied Abbot Hans saw the bulbs, he took
them and planted them in Abbot Hans' herb garden.

He guarded them the whole year to see if any flower would spring from
them. But in vain he waited through the spring, the summer, and the
autumn. Finally, when winter had set in and all the leaves, and the
flowers were dead, he ceased caring for them.

But when Christmas Eve came again, he was so strongly reminded of Abbot
Hans that he wandered out into the garden to think of him. And look! as he
came to the spot where he had planted the bare root bulbs, he saw that
from them had sprung flourishing green stalks, which bore beautiful
flowers with silver white leaves