When spring drew nearer, she got restless. Sometimes, she stepped outside in her nightgown, to look whether the snowdrops were blooming already. It was stupid, of course. He had just meant to tell her that he would be back at the end of winter. Not exactly when the first snowdrops bloomed.
Still, she could not stop doing it. Morning for morning, she stepped outside, and by some miracle, she didn't catch a cold. It was as if she had a candle burning inside her, warming her.
And then, one morning, it was there, the first snowdrop. She carefully picked it, and looked at it for a long time.
"I am back, Glosswen."
There he stood, in his raiment as white as the snow that was now melting. Handsome he was. Strange, that she shouldn't have noticed that before. No, he really was no little boy. Although he had no beard, his shoulders were too broad to be those of a boy, and his eyes, blue as they were, too full of wisdom.
„What does that mean, „Glosswen"?" She pressed the snowdrop to her breast.
„Snowmaiden it means", he stepped closer. "For a snowmaiden you are, with your beautiful hair. Glosswen nîn. You should wear it open more often."
Softly his hand touched her hair, gently he let it slide through his fingers, looking at it as though he really thought it beautiful.
It had to be mockery, could only be mockery, but it didn't sound like it at all...but oh, she had heard how elves could be. Cruel as cats, they said, and cats could be very cruel, you just had to look at them closely to notice.
Of course an elf would be able to say such nice things to her, straightfaced, and without meaning it.
However, there was not much left of her life as it was, so why shouldn't she enjoy such a beautiful dream?
"And who are you? What is your name?"
"Lalaithlanthir I am, Glosswen nîn. I already feared you would never ask."
"I am happy you're back."
She really was. Not only because he brought her the first green herbs of spring, and not because the stack of firewood beside her house had started to grow over night.
No, she was happy to hear him laugh, which sounded like a little waterfall, and the affectionate sound of his voice when he called her Glosswen. Affectionate. Like the son she had never had?
Deep in her heart she knew that it didn't sound like this, but she tried not to think about it.
When the snow had melted, she went into the forest herself, to gather herbs, and he was always there. Lalaithlanthir...what a long, inconvenient name! But she had not forgotten it, although she forgot a lot of things since she had become old.
It happened when she had found the very first cowslip. She bowed down to pick it, and when she stood up again, her hair fell over her shoulders. Lalaithlanthir had pinched her hairpins.
"Why do you never wear it open?" he asked, pouting, and looking so childlike that she had to laugh.
"Well, now, it just is not proper, me being a widow. There..." she handed him the cowslip. "They say, if you eat the first blossom of the year, you'll never fall ill, all year long. It's wasted on me."
"Elves do not fall ill. Take it." He plucked the blossom from the stem. „There." His fingers touched her lips. Warm they felt, like sunrays. She opened her mouth and swallowed the blossom. To not fall ill, no pain in her bones, all winter long...that would be nice.
"I know another spot where it grows", he said. "Let us have a look." He ran away, swift as the wind, but before she could even wonder where he went, he was there again. "I always forget how slow you are, Glosswen nîn." There was no mockery in his voice, he said it affectionately, as if it was a sweet little thing about her, like freckles on her nose.
The other cowslips were not blossoming yet, and she had to sit down on a tree stump to catch her breath.