“There was once a solitary castle in the mountains, with battlement and moat both high and broad.  Far up in a lonely turret dwelt a rare maiden, of such surpassing beauty and fairness that the peasants thought she was not mortal, but an angel from heaven, resting in that tower from the doing of good deeds.  She had flowers up there in her chamber, and the seeds of flowers; and as the seasons passed by, she took from her store the dry germs, and planted them one after another in a little earth on the window-sill.  And the sun shone on them and they grew, and she breathed upon them and they were sweet.  But they withered and bore no offspring, and fell away, so that year by year her store became diminished.  At last there was but one little paper bag of seed left, and upon the cover was written in a strange character, ‘This is the Seed of the Thorn of the World.’  But the beautiful maiden was sad when she saw this, for she said ’All my flowers have been sweet, and now I have but this thing left, which is a thorn!’ And she opened the paper and looked inside, and saw one poor little seed all black and shrivelled.  Through that day she pondered what to do with it, and was very unhappy.  At night she said to herself, ’I will not plant this one; I will throw it away rather than plant it.’  And she went to the window, and tore the paper, and threw out the little seed into the darkness.”

“Poor little thing!” said Hedwig.  She was listening intently.

“She threw it out, and as it fell, all the air was full of music, sad and sweet, so that she wondered greatly.  The next day she looked out of the window, and saw, between the moat and the castle wall, a new plant growing.  It looked black and uninviting, but it had come up so fast that it had already laid hold on the rough gray stones.  At the falling of the night it reached far up towards the turret, a great sharp-pointed vine, with only here and there a miserable leaf on it.  ‘I am sorry I threw it out,’ said the maiden.  ’It is the Thorn of the World, and the people who pass will think it defaces my castle.’  But when it was dark again the air was full of music.  The maiden went to the window, for she could not sleep, and she called out, asking who it was that sang.  Then a sweet, low voice came up to her from the moat.  ‘I am the Thorn,’ it said, ’I sing in the dark, for I am growing.’—­’Sing on, Thorn,’ said she, ‘and grow if you will.’  But in the morning when she awoke, her window was darkened, for the Thorn had grown to be a mighty tree, and its topmost shoots were black against the sky.  She wondered whether this uncouth plant would bear anything but music.  So she spoke to it.

“‘Thorn,’ she said, ‘why have you no flowers?’

“‘I am the Thorn of the World,’ it answered, ’and I can bear no flowers until the hand that planted me has tended me, and pruned me, and shaped me to be its own.  If you had planted me like the rest, it would have been easy for you.  But you planted me unwillingly, down below you by the moat, and I have had far to climb.’