Page 133 - СКАЗКИ СНЕЖНОГО ЭЛЬФА

ground, sounding silver, down went the Flower as well, the
same way but a bit apart. Whirling quietly, it landed on a
thin branch of the oak.
‘That’s it. Going to be my stem with the leaves follow-
ing. This is how I can become a flower,’ said the flowerflake
and made itself comfortable.
In the hollow of the old oak there lived a wise Raven. It
looked at the flake, surprised.
‘Wow, great sit, like a little flower.’
‘Is it, really?’ The flowerflake sounded happy. ‘Do I look
like a real flower?’
‘Not a real one, though, but sort of you do.’
‘But I will be a real flower all the same. The North Wind
said I’d make it if I were after it and believed in it.’
‘Alright then. If the North Wind said so, you would
make it all right. He never lies, I know him well enough.’
And the old Raven flew away to do his wise things.
Then the South Wind came. It tossed the bare oak-tree tops
so violently that the Flower didn’t manage to keep itself from
falling down. The ground was covered with snow – loads of
sleeping snowflakes that didn’t even remember being snow-
flakes. They got together to make a thick snowdrift that was
now sleeping lazily and mindlessly under the oak-tree.
‘Sleep, sleep…,’ the Snowdrift whispered.
‘No, I won’t,’ the Flower protested, trying to fly up back
to the branch, ‘I must become a real flower. I am after it
and believe in it.’
‘Sleep… sleep… forget it…,’ the Snowdrift kept whispering.
But the flowerflake was not going to give in. It dreamt of

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