And they remained thus naked and lying one beside the other.
It seemed to them twain that their bodies touching each other were of fire soft as the sun in the month of roses.
They rose up, as they told later, mounted upon the window sill, launched themselves thence into void space, and felt the air bear them up as the water bears the ships.
Then they perceived nothing any more, neither the earth where poor men were sleeping, nor the heavens where but now the clouds were rolling beneath their feet. And they set their feet on Sirius, the Cold Star. Then from there they were cast upon the pole.
There they saw, not without fear, a naked giant, the Giant Winter, with tawny hair, seated upon ice mounds and against a wall of ice. In shallow pools bears and seals were moving hither and thither, a bellowing flock, all about him. In a hoarse voice, he called up hail and snow and cold floods and gray clouds and red and foul-smelling fogs, and the winds, among which the bitter north wind hath the strongest blast. And all raged together at once in this deadly place.
Smiling upon these horrors, the giant was lying upon a bed of flowers faded by his hand, upon leaves withered at his breath. Then leaning over and scratching the earth with his nails, biting it with his teeth, he delved a hole to seek for the heart of the earth; to devour it, and also to put black coal in the place where shady forests were, straw where the corn was, sand in the room of the fertile earth. But the heart of the earth being of fire, he dared not touch it and recoiled abashed and afraid.
He was throned like a king, draining his cup of oil, in the midst of his bears and his seals, and of the skeleton bones of all those whom he had killed upon the sea, upon land, and in the cottages of poor folk. He listened with delight to the roaring of the bears, the bellowing of the seals, and the dry rattling of the bones of the skeletons of men and beasts under the claws of vultures and ravens seeking a last rag of flesh on them, and the sound of ice lumps dashed one against the other by the gloomy water.
And the voice of the giant was like the roar of hurricanes, the clamour of wintry storms, and the wind howling in chimneys.