Note 1 — I. FROM THE EARLIEST PERIOD OF BOHEMIAN HISTORY TO THE HUNGARIAN INVASION. (-885.)

The following account of the legend of Libus̆a is taken partly from the translation of the Libus̆in Saud by Mr. A. H. Wratislaw, partly from the version of the story given by Cosmas. I have not the least desire to enter here into the burning question of the authenticity of the original poem. I have heard every degree and variety of opinion on that subject, even from patriotic Bohemians. But the only two points that concern me here are, first, that Cosmas must have had before him some old legend containing a version of the story, not unlike that edited and translated by Mr. Wratislaw; secondly, that Cosmas accepted this story as embodying his conception of the beginnings of Bohemian history. No one, as far as I know, disputes the genuineness of Cosmas’s history; into the sources of his information it is not necessary to go.