is Přemysl, and his descendants will reign over you for ever. Take my horse and follow him; he will lead you to the spot." The people chose several out of their number, who immediately set out, and following the guidance of Libussa's horse reached the place described by her, and there found a peasant, whose name they ascertained to be Přemysl, ploughing his field. They immediately saluted him as their prince, and conducted him to the castle on the Vyšehrad, where he was married to Libussa, and seated on the princely throne. Modern Bohemian historians assert that Přemysl was the voyvode of the Lemuzes, one of the tribes into which Bohemia was then divided; and they have also made various not very successful attempts to identify the locality where he was found. According to the old traditions, Přemysl was a great law-giver; and in later times all the most ancient laws and regulations were attributed to him.
Beginning with Přemysl, the ancient Bohemian chroniclers have constructed a regular genealogical table, and his successors in the male line ruled over Bohemia for more than five centuries (up to 1306); whilst the Habsburg dynasty, now reigning over Bohemia, also descends from him in the female line. Nothing except their names,[1] not even the length of their reigns, is known of the first successors of Přemysl; though Hajek of Libočan, and other Bohemian writers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, give long but entirely imaginary accounts of their reigns.
Towards the end of the eighth century the German chroniclers again begin to throw some light on the events that occurred in Bohemia. Ever since the beginning of the greatness of the Carlovingian dynasty these sovereigns had attempted to extend their power in Eastern Germany; and had succeeded in subduing not only the Saxons, but also some of the Slavonic tribes that then inhabited a large part of North-eastern Germany.
The Slavonic tribes of the Obotrites, Wiltes, and Sorbes—whose dwelling-places may be roughly identified with Mecklenburg, Brandenburg, and Saxony—were successively overcome by the Carlovingian monarchs, especially by Charles the Great. As was inevitable, Bohemia, which in so many directions joined the lands he had conquered, also
- ↑ These names will be found in the list of sovereigns of Bohemia contained at the end of this volume.
