ndary stone, for then Bohemia would have been an independent
land for ever! Now that you have too soon disturbed the work of the
ploughman, the boundaries of your land will be the portion and
inheritance of a neighbour, and your remote posterity will cleave to
him in indissoluble union. The three branches of the verdant staff
promise your princess three sons. Two of them will fade away as
immature shoots, but the third will inherit the throne, and through him
will the fruit of later descendants be ripened, until the eagle shall
fly over the mountains and nestle in the land, and then fly away to
return as unto his own possession. If then the son of the gods[2]
shall come forth, who is a friend to the ploughman, and frees him from
his slavish chains--then mark him, posterity, for thou wilt have cause
to bless thy fate. He, when he has trodden under foot the serpent of
superstition, will stretch out his hand towards the increasing moon to
pluck it from the heavens, that he himself may illumine the world as a
beneficent star."

The venerable deputation stood in silent reverence, staring at the
prophet like so many dunces; it seemed as though a god was speaking in
him. But he turned away from the deputies to the companions of his
wearisome toil--the two white oxen, loosened them from the yoke, and
set them at liberty, upon which they bounded merrily about the grassy
field, then visibly faded away, as light clouds melt into air, and
finally vanished completely. Premislas now took off his rustic wooden
shoes, and went to wash himself in the neighbouring brook. Costly
garments were put on him, he girded himself with the sword in knightly
fashion, and had the golden spurs fastened. He then sprang upon the
white horse which allowed him to mount with docility. As he was just
on the point of quitting the estate he had hitherto possessed, he told
the deputies to carry after him the wooden shoes, which he had now put
off, and preserve them as a testimony that the humblest of the people
had once been raised to the highest rank in Bohemia, and as a _memento_
that he and his posterity might not presume upon the rank he had
acquired, but, mindful of their origin, might honour and protect the
peasant class from which they had sprung. Hence arose the old custom
of exhibiting to the kings of Bohemia a pair of shoes on the day of
their coronation--a custom which was observed until the race of
Premislas became extinct. The hazel i