snow is fit for nothing but to make snowballs of.

Thrice that bitter winter the moat was frozen over, and the lads, making
themselves skates of marrow-bones, which they bought from the hall cook
at a groat a pair, went skimming over the smooth surface, red-checked
and shouting, while the crows and the jackdaws looked down at them from
the top of the bleak gray walls.

Then at Yule-tide, which was somewhat of a rude semblance to the Merry
Christmas season of our day, a great feast was held in the hall, and all
the castle folk were fed in the presence of the Earl and the Countess.
Oxen and sheep were roasted whole; huge suet puddings, made of barley
meal sweetened with honey and stuffed with plums, were boiled in great
caldrons in the open courtyard; whole barrels of ale and malmsey were
broached, and all the folk, gentle and simple, were bidden to the feast.
Afterwards the minstrels danced and played a rude play, and in the
evening a miracle show was performed on a raised platform in the north
hall.

For a week afterwards the castle was fed upon the remains of the good
things left from that great feast, until everyone grew to loathe fine
victuals, and longed for honest beef and mustard again.

Then at last in that constant change the winter was gone, and even the
lads who had enjoyed its passing were glad when the winds blew warm once
more, and the grass showed green in sunny places, and the leader of the
wild-fowl blew his horn, as they who in the fall had flown to the south
flew, arrow-like, northward again; when the buds swelled and the leaves
burst forth once more, and crocuses and then daffodils gleamed in the
green grass, like sparks and flames of gold.