noon
Nature was in breathless silence as the sun rose ; but his beaming head was soon obscured by dark heavy clouds . It was a sultry day ; the whole atmosphere was electrical . Distant thunders rolled along over the wood , and echo , with a hundred voices , repeated the fearful sound in the winding valleys . At noon , a forked flash of lightning darted down upon the oak , and shattered root and branches in one moment , with resistless force , so that the fragments lay scattered far and wide in the forest . When this was told to Crocus , he rent his clothes , and went out with his daughters to mourn over his wife 's tree of life , and to collect and preserve the splinters as precious relics . The elf was no more to be seen from that day . After some years , the tender girls grew up , their virgin form bloomed as a rose starting from the bud , and the fame of their beauty was spread all over the country .