One snowy night a young woman answered a mysterious knock on her door. She was confused, as it was past moon high and too cold for anyone to be out. When she answered the door she was greeted by an old woman dressed in grey wearing a large conical hat on her head. In her hands was a sphere of ice that glowed eerily like the moon.

"Who are you?" the young woman asked. "Would you like to come inside?" She held the door open for the old woman to enter.

The old woman shook her head. She handed the young woman her ball of ice and tapped it twice with a bony finger. "You forgot this," she said, and she hurried away. 

The young woman called out to the stranger, but the old woman was long gone. Still very confused at this encounter, the young woman closed the door and set the ball of ice down by the hearth.

She knew the ice would melt before morning indoors, so the young woman quickly moved it, setting the ball of ice outside her door. She knew not what it was for, nor why the old woman had given it to her. All she knew was that it was too late for her to worry about it any further, so she curled up next to her husband and went to sleep.

When dawn came the young woman woke before her family to begin preparing the morning meal. She lit a fire in the hearth and began to make tea. As the morning light seeped through the cracks of the house she remembered the encounter with the old woman the night before. At this point she wondered if it had all been a dream. Had she really met such a person so late at night?

Then she remembered the ball of ice. If it were still sitting in front of her house then she really must have met the old woman.

Putting on her straw coat, the young woman opened her door and peered outside. She gasped with shock at what she saw before her.

Wrapped tightly in white cloth was an infant. As soon as the young woman crouched down to pick it up, the child let out an anguished wail, its little face turning pink with cold. 

The infant's cries woke the young woman's husband and her in-laws, who quickly came to see what was all the fuss. They were just as surprised to see the young woman holding a baby, and they had no end of questions.

The young woman told her family about the old woman and the ball of glowing ice she'd left behind the night before.

Though they had no idea who or what the child was, they could not just leave the infant out in the cold. The family took the infant into their home, and they became the child of the young woman and her husband.