Anatole France 
Bee: The Princess of the Dwarfs 

Setting on her golden hair a hood spread with pearls and tying round her waist the widow’s girdle, the Countess of the White Moor entered the chapel where she prayed each day for the soul of her husband, killed by an Irish giant in single combat.
That day she saw, on the cushion of her praying-stool, a white rose. At the sight of it she turned pale and her eyes grew dim; she threw her head back and wrung her hands. For she knew that when a Countess of the White Moor must die she finds a white rose on her stool.