"Come with me," said the man; "we have made a fire under the trees, where you can rest better than in this open field." The traveller could not refuse such a friendly invitation, so he got up[Pg 115] directly, and walked on quickly with the stranger. The snowstorm raged so furiously that they could not see a step before them, but when the stranger lifted his fir staff and cried with a loud voice, "Ho there, mother of the snowstorm, make way!" a broad pathway appeared before them, on which no snowflakes fell. A dreadful snowstorm raged on either side of the wanderers and behind them, but it did not touch them. It appeared as if an invisible wall held back the storm on either hand. The men soon reached the wood, and they had already seen the light of the fire from afar off. "What is your name?" asked the man with the fir staff, and the peasant answered, "Hans, the son of tall Hans." Three men sat at the fire, clothed in white linen garments, as if it had been midsummer. For thirty paces or more around them, everything looked like summer; the moss was dry, the herbage was green, and the grass swarmed with ants and small beetles; but afar off Hans heard the blasts of wind and the raging of the storm. Still stranger seemed the burning fire, which spread a bright light around, but threw up no smoke. "What think you, tall Hans' son? isn't this a better resting-place for the night than under the juniper bush in the open field?"[Pg 116] Hans assented, and thanked the stranger for bringing him there. Then he took off his fur-cloak, rolled it up as a pillow for his head, and lay down in the glow of the fire. The man with the fir staff took his flask from under a bush and offered Hans a drink, which tasted most excellent, and warmed his heart. He then lay down too, and began conversing with his companions in a foreign language, of which Hans could not understand a word; and Hans presently fell asleep.