“And why didn’t you bring more? Or did you eat them on the way home?” said Holena harshly.
“Alas! sister dear, I didn’t eat a single one. But when I had shaken the tree once, one apple fell down, and when I shook it a second time, another apple fell down, and they wouldn’t let me shake it again. They shouted to me to go straight home,” protested Maruša.
Holena began to curse her: “May you be struck to death by lightning!” and she was going to beat her.
Maruša began to cry bitterly, and she prayed to God to take her to Himself, or she would be killed by her wicked sister and her stepmother. She ran away into the kitchen.
Greedy Holena stopped cursing and began to eat the apple. It tasted so delicious that she told her mother she had never tasted anything so nice in all her life. The stepmother liked it too. When they had finished, they wanted some more.
“Mother, give me my fur coat. I’ll go to the forest myself. That ragged little wretch would eat them all up again on her way home. I’ll find the place all right, and I’ll shake them all down, however they shout at me.”
Her mother tried to dissuade her, but it was no good. She took her fur coat, wrapped a cloth round her head, and off she went to the forest. Her mother stood on the threshold, watching to see how Holena would manage to walk in the wintry weather.
The snow lay deep, and there wasn’t a human footprint to be seen anywhere. Holena wandered about for a long time, but the desire of the sweet apple kept driving her on. At last she saw a light in the distance. She went towards it, and climbed to the top of the mountain where the big fire was burning, and round the fire on twelve stones the twelve months were sitting. She was terrified at first, but she soon recovered. She stepped up to the fire and stretched out her hands to warm them, but she didn’t say as much as “By your leave” to the twelve months; no, she didn’t say a single word to them.
“Why have you come here, and what are you looking for?” asked Great January crossly.
“Why do you want to know, you old fool? It’s no business of yours,” replied Holena angrily, and she turned away from the fire and went into the forest.