Now, when these two had neared the others, they bowed low before them. The one who came from the East bowed lowest before Summer; but the one who came from the West showed Winter the greatest deference.
Thereupon they sat down, just opposite each other, each on his mountain, and so they all four sat for a while, in a circle, and said nothing. Then Winter asked:
“Who may you two be?”
“I am Autumn,” said he who had come from the West.
“I am Spring,” said the other.
Winter looked hard at them and shook his head:
“I don’t know you,” he said.
“I have never heard your names,” said Summer.
“We have come to rule over the earth,” said Spring.
But now Winter grew angry in earnest. He wrapped his head in the most terrible snow-storm that had ever been seen in the land; and his voice sounded like thunder from out of the storm: