The Election at the Jezerka Spring

The election of the dukes is said to have taken place at the Jezerka; water had been led from that spring since ancient times up to Vyšehrad, where there was as yet no well. After Krok's death the leaders, the squires and the people gathered there in the sacred grove and chose as their princess Libuše, his fairest and wisest daughter; and from there they led her in rejoicing to Vyšehrad, where they seated her on the stone throne beneath a spreading lime tree on which her father had sat before her. Following that precedent, it is said, newly elected dukes were always afterwards conducted from there to Vyšehrad. So Hájek relates under the year 883: those chosen for the purpose by all the inhabitants of the land assembled at a most limpid spring not far from Vyšehrad, called the Jezerka; and Libuše's gold-adorned chair was brought there and set by that spring, and at the squires' command Křesomysl seated himself upon it. When the squires had conferred together, the two most distinguished men took Přemysl's ancient cap from its casket and placed it on Křesomysl's head. Then all the people present cried out as with one mouth: “Křesomysl is our lord, and he shall bless us!” — and all bowed down. That shouting and bowing lasted a long while, and when they had grown quiet Křesomysl rose and went up in that ducal cap to Vyšehrad.