Page:Libussa, Duchess of Bohemia; also, The Man Without a Name.djvu/17



the depths of the Bohemian forest, which formerly extended far and wide into the country, and of which now but the shadow remains, lived in times of yore a spiritual little nation, light-shunning, aërial, incorporeal, and of a more refined nature than clay-formed mankind, and therefore imperceptible to their coarser senses, though half visible at moonlight to the more refined; well known to the poets under the name of Dryads, and to the ancient bards under that of Elves. From time immemorial their abode had been undisturbed, till all at once the forest resounded with warlike tumult. Duke Czech, from Hungary, had invaded the mountains with his Sclavonian hordes, to seek a new abode in these inhospitable regions. The beautiful inhabitants of the venerable oaks, of the rocks, of the cliffs, of the grottoes, and of the rushes in the ponds and pools, fled before the clashing of arms and the