Chapter 3

With the aid of time, Crocus also acquired much knowledge of these mysteries. When the wolf had dispersed the cattle in the wood, and the shepherds searched about for their lost sheep and oxen; when the woodmen missed an adze or a hatchet, they sought advice from the wise Crocus, who told them where to find what they had lost. If a bad neighbour made away with any of the common property, broke at night-time into the fold or dwelling of another, robbed him, or murdered his host, and no one could guess who was the criminal, the wise Crocus was always sought for counsel. He then summoned the community to a grass-plot, made them form a circle, stepped into the midst of it, and let the infallible sieve turn, which invariably pointed out the malefactor. His fame was thus spread over all the land of Bohemia, and whoever had an affair or any business of importance, consulted the wise man as to its issue. Nay, cripples and sick persons sought from him aid and recovery; even diseased cattle were brought to him, and he knew how to cure ailing cows with his shadow, as well as the renowned St. Martin, of Schierbach. The concourse of people that sought him increased every day, just as if the tripod of the Delphic Apollo had been removed to the Bohemian forest; and although Crocus, without gain and reward, gave his information to those that questioned him, and healed the sick and crippled, the treasure of his mysterious wisdom proved very productive, and brought him great profit; for the people pressed to him with their gifts, and quite overwhelmed him with the proofs of their good-will. He first revealed the secret of washing gold out of the sand of the Elbe, and received a tenth from all who collected the gold sand. Thus his means and his wealth were increased; he built strong castles and palaces, he kept large herds of cattle, he possessed fertile lands, woods, and fields, and imperceptibly found himself in the possession of all the wealth which the liberal elf had prophetically enclosed for him, in the second piece of reed.

One fine summer evening, when Crocus, with his attendants, was returning from an excursion, where he had settled the boundary disputes of two neighbouring congregations at their request, he perceived his wife on the brink of the pond, where she had first appeared to him. She beckoned to him with her hand, so he dismissed his retinue, and hastened to embrace her. As usual, she received him with tender love, but her heart was oppressed and mournful, while from her eyes trickled ethereal tears, so fair and transient, that they were hastily absorbed by the air, without reaching the earth. Crocus was astonished at the sight, for he had never seen the eyes of his wife look otherwise than cheerful, and with all the brilliancy of youthful joy. “What ails thee, beloved of my heart?” said he; “my soul is torn by uneasy forebodings. Tell me, what is the meaning of these tears?” The elf sighed, leaned her head mournfully on his shoulder, and said: “Dear husband, in thine absence I have read in the book of fate, that an unhappy destiny threatens my tree of life; I must leave thee for ever. Follow me to the castle, that I may bless my children, for from this day you will never see me again.” “Oh, my beloved,” replied Crocus, “banish these melancholy thoughts! What misfortune can threaten thy tree? Are not its roots and trunk firmly fixed? Look at its healthy branches, as, laden with fruit and leaves, they extend themselves, and see how it raises its top to the clouds. As long as this arm moves, it shall defend itself against every impious man who shall dare to injure its trunk.”--“Weak is the protection,” replied she, “which a mortal arm can afford! Ants can only contend with ants, gnats only with gnats, and all the worms of the earth can merely guard off their like. What can the strongest of you do against the operations of nature, or the inscrutable decrees of fate? The kings of the earth can easily overthrow the little mounds which you call your fortresses and castles, but the slightest breeze scorns their power, rustles when its pleases, and heeds not their command. Thou hast already defended this oak against the might of man, but canst thou also resist the whirlwind, when it arises to strip the leaves from its boughs; or if a concealed worm gnawed at its core, could you draw it forth and crush it?”

Discoursing thus, the affectionate pair entered the castle. The slender maidens sprang joyfully towards them, as they were accustomed to do on their mother’s evening visits, gave an account of their daily occupation, brought their embroidery and needle-work as a proof of their industry and skill; but, on this occasion, the hour of domestic happiness was totally joyless. The girls soon perceived that the traces of deep sorrow were imprinted on their father’s face, and saw with sympathising grief their mother’s tears, without venturing to inquire into the cause. Their mother gave them many wise instructions and good admonitions; but her discourse was like the song of a swan, as if she were about to take leave of the world. She remained with her beloved family till the morning-star arose; she then embraced her husband and children with melancholy tenderness, retired to her tree as usual, at day-break, through a secret door, and left them all to the most melancholy forebodings.

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. The noblest youths among the people came forward, and had all sorts of petitions to lay before Father Crocus, and ask his advice. In truth this was but a pretext, that they might ogle the lovely girls, as young fellows often feign some business with the fathers, if they wish to coax the daughters. The three daughters lived together in great ease and concord, little aware of their own talents. The gift of prophecy was possessed by them all in equal degree, and their discourses were oracles without their knowing it. Soon, however, their vanity was excited by the voice of flattery, the word-catchers snapped up every sound from their lips, the Seladons interpreted every gesture, traced the slightest smile, watched the glance of their eyes, drawing from them indications more or less favourable, fancied they would thence gather their destinies, and from that time it has been the custom among lovers to question the good or bad star of love in the horoscope of the eyes. Scarcely had vanity insinuated itself into the virgin heart, than pride was at the door with all the rabble of his train,--self-love, self-praise, obstinacy, selfishness, and all these stole in together. The elder sisters vied with each other, to excel the younger in her arts, and secretly envied her on account of her superior charms, for although all were very beautiful, Libussa was the most beautiful of them all. The Lady Bela particularly devoted herself to the study of herbs, as Lady Medea did in the days of old. She knew their hidden virtues, and how to extract from them efficacious poisons and antidotes, as well as to prepare from them scents, pleasant and unpleasant, for the invincible powers. When her censer smoked, she charmed down the spirits from the immeasurable space of ether on the other side of the moon, and they became subject to her, that with their fine organs they might inhale these sweet perfumes, but when she flung the offensive scent into the censer, she would have forced the Zihim and Ohim out of the desert.

The Lady Therba was as ingenious as Circe in contriving magic spells of all sorts, which had force enough to sway the elements, to raise storms and whirlwinds, hail and tempest, to shake the very bowels of the earth, or to lift it out of its very hinges. She made use of these arts to terrify the people, that she might be honoured and feared as a goddess, and knew better how to accommodate the weather to the wishes and caprices of mankind, than wise nature herself. Two brothers quarrelled because they never could agree in their wishes. One was a husbandman, who always wished for rain that his seed might thrive. The other was a potter, who always wished for sunshine, that he might dry his earthen pots, which were destroyed by the rain. Because the heavens never would satisfy them, they went one day with rich presents to the house of the wise Crocus, and told their wishes to Therba. The elf’s daughter smiled at the boisterous complaints of the brothers against the beneficent arrangements of nature, and satisfied the wishes of both, letting rain fall on the seed of the agriculturist, and sunshine on the field of the potter. By their magic arts the two sisters acquired great fame and vast wealth, for they never communicated their gifts without reward; they built castles and villas out of their treasures; they laid out fine pleasure gardens; they were never weary of feasting and merry-making, and they jilted the suitors who sought their love.

Libussa had not the proud vain disposition of her sisters. Although she possessed the same faculty of penetrating into the secrets of nature and using her hidden virtues, she was satisfied with the share of miraculous power she had inherited from her mother without carrying it further, that she might make a profit of it. Her vanity did not go beyond the consciousness of her own beauty; she did not thirst after riches, and she did not, like her sisters, wish either to be feared or honoured. When these kept up a constant bustle in their villas, hurried from one exciting pleasure to another, and attached the flower of the Bohemian knighthood to their triumphal car, she remained at home in her father’s dwelling, managed the household affairs, gave council to those who asked for it, kindly assisted the oppressed and distressed,--and all from mere good will without any reward. Her disposition was gentle and modest, her life chaste and virtuous such as became a noble maiden. She was, to be sure, secretly pleased at the victories which her beauty gained over the hearts of men, and she received the sighs and cooing of pining adorers, as a fitting tribute to her charms, but no one dared breathe to her a word of love, or presume to solicit her heart. Yet the wag Cupid loves better than any thing to exercise his rights with the coy, and will often throw his burning torch on a low straw-thatched shed when he intends to fire a lofty palace.

An old knight, who had come into the land with an army of the Czechites, had settled deep in the forest. He had made the wilderness arable, and had laid out an estate, on which he intended to pass the remainder of his days in peace, living on the produce of his fields. However a powerful neighbour took possession of the property, and drove out the knight, whom a hospitable countryman took in, giving him a shelter in his own dwelling. The poor old man had a son, who was the only prop and consolation of his age--a fine youth, who however possessed nothing but a hunting spear, and a well practised fist to support his father. The plunder by the unjust Nabal excited his revenge, and he armed himself to repel force with force. The command of the careful old man, who did not wish to expose the life of his son to any danger, disarmed the noble youth, but afterwards he was determined not to relinquish his original design. So his father called him, and said, “Go, my son, to the wise Crocus, or to the wise virgins his daughters, and ask them whether the gods approve of thine enterprise, and will grant a favourable issue to it. If so, thou mayst gird on thy sword, take thy spear in thy hand, and fight for thy patrimony. If not, remain here till thou hast closed mine eyes, and then do as seems right to thee.”

The youth set out and first reached the palace of Bela, which had the appearance of a temple, inhabited by a goddess. He knocked and desired to be admitted, but the porter, as soon as he saw that the stranger appeared with empty hands, dismissed him as a beggar, and closed the door in his face. He proceeded sorrowfully, and came to the dwelling of Therba, where he knocked and desired a hearing. The porter peeped out of the window, and said, “If thou bearest gold in thy pocket so that thou canst weigh it out to my mistress, she will give thee one of her wise sayings that will tell thee thy fate. If not, go and gather on the shore of the Elbe as much of it as the tree has leaves, the sheaf has ears, and the bird has feathers, and then I will open this door for thee.” The youth thus again deceived, departed quite out of heart, especially when he learned that the prophet Crocus had gone to Poland, to officiate as umpire between some Magnates, who could not agree together. He expected no better reception from the third sister, and when he saw her paternal forest-castle from a hill in the distance, he did not venture to approach it, but concealed himself in a thick bush to brood over his grief. He was soon roused from his gloomy reflections by a noise like the tramp of horses’ feet. A flying roe darted through the bushes followed by a beautiful huntress and her attendants, all mounted on magnificent steeds. She hurled a javelin which whizzed through the air without reaching the animal. The youth who watched the scene, at once caught up his cross-bow, and from the twanging string sent forth a winged arrow which darted at once through the heart of the beast, so that it fell down on the spot. The lady, surprised at this unexpected phenomena, looked round for the unknown hunter, which, when the marksman perceived, he stepped forward and bowed humbly to the ground. The Lady Libussa thought she had never seen a handsomer man. At the very first glance his frame made upon her so strong an impression that she could not help being involuntarily prepossessed in his favour, and confessing he was of a noble figure. “Tell me, dear stranger,” said she, “who are thou, and what chance has conducted thee to these precincts?” The youth rightly surmised that his good fortune had allowed him to find what he sought, so he modestly communicated his wishes, not forgetting to say, how uncivilly he had been dismissed from the doors of her sisters, and how much he had been afflicted in consequence. She cheered his mind with kind words. “Follow me to my dwelling,” said she, “I will question for thee the book of fate, and to-morrow at sunrise I will give thee information.”

The youth obeyed her orders: here there was no churlish porter to prevent his entrance into the palace; here the lovely resident exercised the law of hospitality most liberally towards him. He was delighted with this favourable reception, but still more so with the charms of his fair hostess. The enchanting form flitted before his eyes all night, and he carefully guarded against the approach of sleep, that the events of the past day which he reflected on with delight might not leave his thoughts for a single moment. The Lady Libussa on the other hand, enjoyed a gentle slumber, for retirement from the impressions of the outward senses, which disturb the fine anticipations of the future, is indispensable to the gift of prophecy. Nevertheless the glowing fancy of the elf’s sleeping daughter united the form of the young stranger to all the visionary forms that appeared to her in the night. She found him where she did not seek him, and under such circumstances that she could not understand how she should have any relation to this stranger. When the fair prophetess, on waking early in the morning, endeavoured as usual to separate and unravel the visions of the night, she was disposed to reject them altogether as illusions that had sprung from an aberration of fancy, and to give them no more attention. But a dark feeling told her that the creation of her fancy was not a mere empty dream, but that it pointed to certain events, which the future would unfold, and that this same prophetic fancy, had in the night just passed, overheard the secret counsels of destiny better than ever, and had blabbed them out to her. In the same way, she found that the guest now under her roof was violently inflamed with ardent love, and her heart quite as unreservedly made her the same confession with respect to him; but she set the seal of secrecy upon the information, while the modest youth, on his side, had vowed that he would impose silence on his tongue and on his eyes, that he might not expose himself to contemptuous refusal: for the barrier which fortune had set up between him and the daughter of Crocus seemed to him insurmountable.

Although the fair Libussa knew perfectly well what answer to give to the young man’s question, she felt it very difficult to allow him to depart so quickly. At sunrise she appointed a meeting with him in the garden and said: “The veil of darkness still hangs before my eyes; to know thy destiny wait till sunset.” In the evening she said: “Wait till sunrise:” on the following morning “Wait throughout this day,” and on the third, “Have patience till to-morrow.” At last, on the fourth day, she dismissed him, because she had no pretext for detaining him any longer, without discovering her secret, and with kind words she gave him this information: “It is not the will of the gods that thou shouldst contend with a mighty one in the land; endurance is the lot of the weaker. Go to thy father: be the consolation of his age, and support him with the labour of thy industrious hand. Take from my herd two white bulls as a present, and take this rod to guide them. When it blooms and bears fruit the spirit of prophecy will rest upon thee.” The youth considered himself unworthy of the lovely maiden’s presents, and blushed to accept a gift without being able to return it. With lips void of eloquence, but with a demeanour so much the more eloquent, he took a sorrowful farewell, and found tied up by the gate a couple of white bulls, as plump and shining as the divine bull of old, upon whose sleek back the virgin Europa swam through the blue waves. Joyfully he unloosened them, and drove them gently along. The road here seemed but a few yards in length, so completely was his soul occupied with the thoughts of the fair Libussa, and as he felt he never could share her love, he vowed he would, at any rate, never love another as long as he lived. The old knight was delighted at his son’s return, and still more delighted when he learned that the advice of the wise Crocus’s daughter so perfectly accorded with his own wishes. The youth being destined by the gods to follow the calling of a husbandman, did not delay to yoke his white bulls to the plough. The first attempt succeeded according to his wishes; the bulls were so strong and so spirited, that in one day they turned up more land than twelve oxen would commonly have managed.

Duke Czech, who had conducted the first expedition of his people into Bohemia, had died long ago, and his descendants inherited neither his dignity nor his principality. The Magnates, to be sure, assembled after his decease, to make a new election, but their savage, stormy temperaments did not allow them to come to any rational decision. Selfishness and arrogance turned the first state assembly of Bohemia into a Polish diet;[1] too many hands seized the princely mantle at once, so they tore it to pieces, and it belonged to nobody. The government fell into a kind of anarchy; every one did as he pleased; the strong oppressed the weak, the rich the poor, the great the little. There was no longer any general security in the country, and nevertheless these mad caps thought their new republic was admirably constituted. “All” they cried “is in order; every thing goes its way with us as everywhere else; the wolf eats the lamb, the kite eats the pigeon, and the fox eats the fowl.” However, this mad constitution had no stability; and after the intoxication of visionary freedom was dissipated, and the people had again become sober, reason once more asserted her rights, and the patriots, the honest citizens, and all in fact in the country, who had any love for their father-land, took counsel to destroy the present idol, the many-headed hydra, and to unite the people again under a sovereign. “Let us,” they said, “choose a prince who shall rule over us, according to the custom of our fathers, who shall curb licentiousness, and administer justice and the laws. Not the strongest, the bravest, nor the richest, but the wisest shall be our duke!” The people being weary of the oppressions of the petty tyrants, were on this occasion unanimous, and answered the proposition with loud applause. A general assembly was appointed, and the choice of all fell upon the wise Crocus. A deputation was sent to invite him to take possession of his dignity, and although he was not covetous of the distinguished honour, he did not delay to accord with the wishes of the people. He was dressed in the purple, and he proceeded with great pomp to Vizegrad, the princely residence, where the people met him with loud rejoicings, and swore allegiance to him as their sovereign. He now perceived that even the third slip of reed offered him by the liberal elf had bestowed its gift upon him.

His love of equity and his wise legislation extended his fame over all the countries round. The Sarmatian princes, who used incessantly to quarrel, brought their disputes from a great distance to his tribunal. He weighed, with the infallible weight and measure of natural equity, in the scales of justice, and when he opened his mouth, it was as if the venerable Solon or the wise Solomon, between the twelve lions from his throne, gave judgment. Once, when some rebels had conspired against the peace of their country, and had set all the excitable nation of Poles by the ears, he marched to Poland at the head of his army, and suppressed the civil war. There likewise was he made duke by a great part of the people, out of gratitude for the peace which he had given them. He built there the city of Cracow, which still bears his name, and has the right of crowning the Polish king to the present day. Crocus reigned with great glory to the termination of his life. When he perceived that his end was approaching, and that he should now leave this world, he ordered to be made of the remains of the oak, which his wife the elf had inhabited, a box to contain his bones. He then departed in peace, wept over by his three daughters, who laid him in the box, and buried him as he had commanded, while the whole country mourned his loss.