An unmarried man lived with his elderly parents at the edge of a farming village. One winter he met a beautiful woman whose skin was pale as snow. She had long, dark hair piled into a tight bun at the nape of her neck, and dark brown eyes. She was so beautiful that the man fell in love with her and asked her to marry him. The woman agreed, and the two of them were wed.

When spring came, however, the woman suddenly disappeared. The man was distraught, fearing she had been kidnapped. He searched high and low for her, travelling across several villages in the region for any traces of her. When he could not find her he returned home.

Had he merely imagined his beautiful wife? No. His parents remembered she had existed. In fact, his parents were now scolding him for marrying a woman who had left him. They believed their daughter-in-law had taken off, abandoning the family for someone more wealthy. The man eventually came to believe this and agreed to marry another woman not long after.

The man and his new wife were very happy for some time. His second wife was well-liked by his parents, and she stayed with them through the three warmer seasons.

But when winter came the family received a strange visitor. When the new wife answered the door she found a beautiful woman with pale skin and dark eyes. She looked like she'd just been rushing to get here, but upon being greeted by the second wife she became ver upset. The pale woman asked the second wife if her husband was home. The man was called, and his second wife went back to tend to her in-laws.

Around the hearth the second wife explained that the visitor, a pale, beautiful woman, had asked for her husband. The elder mother and father did not know of anyone like that, except...

There was a choking cry from the door that brought everyone running. The second wife and her in-laws could only gasp in fright. 

The pale woman had gone, her former husband spasming on the ground from a large icicle that had burst through his chest.