"Kneel on my back and put your arms round my neck; I will carry you further."
And he bore her far, far, and wherever he alighted a babe was born, and Love and Happiness followed in their wake, and dwelt beside the child. And the whole earth grew green and bright. The birds sang again, and every sunbeam gave new power to Life, so that once more she could stand on the mountain tops, a blooming, splendid woman, full of grace and majesty, with earnest eyes and serious mouth, her hands filled with the fruits that should make rich the world.
But deep down in the earth, Strife who had awoke long ago, sought for his absent wife. He stormed out into the world, and every where he beheld her traces, but herself he could not find. How many of her gifts did he not destroy in his wild haste! Sometimes he would halt puzzled, piercing the distance with his stern looks. Ay, he was near despairing, for she, from whom he could no longer live apart, fled from him ever. Now a tree hid her with his foliage, now a bird in his nest, now a flower beneath its leaves, now the mist in its veil; and if he came too near to her an eagle would bear her on his pinions up to the Sun, until Strife had swept past below, when she returned endowed with new power and glory. But at last, at last, he did catch sight of her as she was pressing a vine wreath upon the locks of Happiness, and sending a gleam from her forehead into the eyes of Love. Then he stepped before her, looked at her and beckoned. He must have done something to her, for of pride and resistance there was no longer a trace. He strode before her without looking round, and she bowed her lovely head and followed him; and when her comrades would have held her back, she only beckoned with her hand, and stepped after him silently, wrapped in robes of mist that swept the falling leaves, and was like to an echo of the gurgling that had once sounded in her robes. She went into the mountain, bearing with her fruits and grapes, that the Kobolds pressed into wine with which they made to themselves merry days.
And she brought forth two children, a boy and a maid. Both were very pale, and had large dark eyes. The boy had something wild about him, like his father, the maid was tender like her mother; she was named Sorrow, but he was called Death. Sorrow did not remain long in her rocky home. She had inherited from her mother a yearning for earth, and from her father a ceaseless unrest. So she wandered ever backwards and forwards upon the earth, and never returned to her home. The boy followed now his father, now his mother, now his sister, and he made all still and dead upon their paths; the birds grew still and dead, the ears of corn grew empty, the children pale; still and dead all who struggled and suffered.
His mother could only behold him with a shudder; he inspired his father with malicious joy, but only his sister loved him. She ever called him to her, and wept when he would not come. One day he said to Sorrow, "I must kill my mother; ay, if she only looks at me she is dead. But she ever turns aside from me."
Sorrow was terrified at these words, and did all in her power to turn the mother's gaze from the son. But she ever felt his might, and could no longer play with Love and Happiness as formerly. They both, too, feared Life's awful son even more than her grim spouse, for over him they had learnt to exert a certain power; he grew quieter in their presence. But Death remained ever inexorable; his glance now scorching like the simoon, now numbing like the north; even the Sun lost her strength before this terrible boy, for he laid night upon all eyelids, and froze all things living.
Since that time there is an end of the earth's paradise. That is why Life is no longer a radiant maiden, but a grave woman, full of useful power, of stern demands on that which she has created. She cannot forget how fair all was once, and fain would see it thus again, notwithstanding Strife and Sorrow and Death. She would fain be stronger than all these three, and yet she must succumb and begin again anew, to succumb again, ever and ever.