So great an impression did the poems, in which this ideal is set forth, produce on the Bohemian mind, that extracts from them are translated at full length by the chronicler Cosmas, who took an active part in the bustling politics of the eleventh century, when these ideals must have seemed to belong to a very distant past.
According to this writer, certain people who had been scattered by the failure of the Tower of Babel, wandered into Germany where they found various wild beasts. One party in the course of their wanderings found a plain lying near the mountain Rip, and between the rivers Ogra (Eger), and Wlitawa (Moldau). This plain they called Bohemia after the eldest of the party named Boemus. Here they founded a peaceable and communistic settlement where they desired to make war on none but the beasts. But, some ambitious men having introduced the evil of private property, it became necessary to choose a judge to decide the disputes which now unavoidably arose. So they chose as their judge their best man named Crocco, who founded a camp. He had three daughters, of whom the eldest was skilled in medicine, the second was a kind of religious teacher, who instructed the people in the worship of Oreads and Dryads; while the third, Libus̆a, was distinguished for her political wisdom and foresight, and was supposed to be an inspired prophetess.
Libus̆a was accordingly chosen to the judicial office on her father’s death. But Crocco’s formation of a camp seems to have stirred the military spirit in the Bohemians; and the story which follows clearly indicates the transition from the earlier and more peaceable stage to the later developments of national organisation. Two powerful chiefs are disputing for the land, which has come to them from their father. The question is submitted to Libus̆a, as the chief judge. On the day of the trial she appears in great state, summons before her the heads of the different families or tribes, and submits to them her proposals for settling this question. She declares that, according to the old custom of their people, the land ought either to be equally divided between the brothers, or else they ought to share it in common. The leaders of the tribes, after collecting in some way the votes of the assembly, decide that the land is to be held in common, basing their judgment also on the old traditions of the nation. Thereupon the elder of the disputants rises in anger, and declares that he ought to have retained the land in right of primogeniture, and further that the Bohemians ought not to submit any longer to women, who were fitter for receiving the advances of wooers than of dictating laws to soldiers.