ut do not stop me
now;--I may overtake him--I may find my child!"

But Night stood still and mute. Then the mother wrung her hands, sang
and wept, and there were many songs, but yet many more tears; and then
Night said, "Go to the right, into the dark pine forest; thither I saw
Death take his way with thy little child!"

The roads crossed each other in the depths of the forest, and she no
longer knew whither she should go; then there stood a thorn-bush;
there was neither leaf nor flower on it, it was also in the cold
winter season, and ice-flakes hung on the branches.

"Hast thou not seen Death go past with my little child?" said the
mother.

"Yes," said the thorn-bush; "but I will not tell thee which way he
took, unless thou wilt first warm me up at thy heart. I am freezing to
death; I shall become a lump of ice!"

And she pressed the thorn-bush to her breast, so firmly, that it might
be thoroughly warmed, and the thorns went right into her flesh, and
her blood flowed in large drops, but the thorn-bush shot forth fresh
green leaves, and there came flowers on it in the cold winter night,
the heart of the afflicted mother was so warm; and the thorn-bush told
her the way she should go.

She then came to a large lake, where there was neither ship nor boat.
The lake was not frozen sufficiently to bear her; neither was it open,
nor low enough that she could wade through it; and across it she must
go if she would find her child! Then she lay down to drink up the
lake, and that was an impossibility for a human being, but the
afflicted mother thought that a miracle might happen nevertheless.

"Oh, what would I not give to come to my child!" said the weeping
mother; and she wept still more, and her eyes sunk down in the depths
of the waters, and became two precious pearls; but the water bore her
up, as if she sat in a swing, and she flew in the rocking waves to the
shore on the opposite side, where there stood a mile-broad, strange
house, one knew not if it were a mountain with forests and caverns, or
if it were built up; but the poor mother could not see it; she had
wept her eyes out.

"Where shall I find Death, who took away my little child?" said she.

"He has not come here yet!" said the old grave woman, who was
appointed to look after Death's great greenhouse! "How have you been
able to find the way hither? and who has helped you?"

"_Our Lord_ has helped me," said she. "He is merciful, and you will
also be so!