COSMAS
45..
the sun and the moisture of the water, the fields and pastures, and even marriage was common to them all.
The use of wool and linen, and indeed of all clothIn winter only they used ing, was unknown to them. No the skins of wild beasts and of sheep as clothing. ' one could say of anything, It is mine,' but, as is usual .
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in monastic communities, they said with their mouths, their hearts, and their deeds, ' Everything we own is ours (in common).' Their stables had no bolts, and they did not close their doors on the poor, for there were neither robbers nor poor. . . , No arms were to be seen except arrows, and these they only used against
wild beasts." In Bohemia,
as elsewhere,
the "golden age" was of
short duration. Cosmas, continuing his narrative, tells us the tales of Crocus and Libussa, of Premysl, the ploughman-prince, and of the foundation of Prague, which we afterwards find in an enlarged form in the works of the so-called Dalimil and of Hajek. Many of these tales, such as that of the ploughman-prince, are common property of most Slav countries ; but the strange tale of the "war of the maidens," divH vdlka, which is said to have occurred after Libussa's death, evidently founded on the ancient traditions concerning the Amazons, is found in the records of no other Slav country. Bohemian scholars have recently attempted, with great ingenuity, to trace the manner in which this Eastern tale found its way to Bohemia. From the year 894, the date which Cosmas fixes as that of the conversion of the Bohemian prince Bofivoj, he adopts the chronological system. Cosmas, however, very frankly admits that many of his statements are founded on slight and doubtful authority. For the
