The first mountain was lying in deep winter; the trees and shrubs clung to the rocks that were frozen stiff and sparsely covered with earth, and they looked like hoar-frost itself. Rocks and earth were coated with ice, and over the hill raged a violent snowstorm which furiously drove the winter into the mountain as if it wanted to split the hill with its cold.
All the animals had sought the protection of the mountain, which was shaken by the cold, and along with the trees and shrubs they walked on the grass that came running along hurriedly.
To Mani it seemed as if death was ruling with terror on this wandering glacier, since all life seemed dead; only grim cold stared at her, and the memory of the ice-rocks in the world-ocean came back. Now the icy cold came towards them, and Mani began to shiver.

As she sat there shaking, yielding to the bitter frost, her attention was absorbed anew: the rock cracked open with a thunder; from the yawning opening glistening chips of ice rushed forth and stared at her with sharp, keen eyes. Mani realized they were frost-soldiers.

With sharp blades of ice they drove the snow, that swept closer, into the rocks and split them.
The warriors were clad in coats of mossy straw and appeared like pugnacious straw-puppets.

To the clamour of their icy blades and axes they sang a grim song of war. Wherever they found anything green left, they chopped it off and smashed it to the ground with mighty strokes. Immediately the bare branches shook in the wintery storm and froze into bizarre shapes of frost, thus becoming the heralds of clanking cold.

Now Mani saw winter himself: frost stared at her with penetrating eyes, as winter stepped out of the crevice.
At his sight the moon jumped high jubilantly and danced about the firmament as if out of her mind.

With a gigantic icicle, as big as ten trees, winter drove the rock-cleavers in front of him and spurred them to even wilder hurry.
His soldiers were smaller in size and shape and inferior to him, but winter wore the same coat of straw, overgrown with moss and all covered with ice; in the dim moonlight his coat shimmered grey-green and blended smoothly with the hoar-red beard of the colossus and with his wild hair, which hang down from his huge head matted and frozen.

Mani had to crane her neck in order to face the icy winter. And when the forceful staring gaze of the giant suddenly and unexpectedly met Mani, she began to shiver. She felt a yawning emptiness rise within her, because she thought she was looking into the relentless eyes of death.
Mani shivered from so much ice-cold; she sat down quickly, closed her eyes and thought of nothing.