Má vlast
Janáček used as his source text a narrative poem by Jaroslav Vrchlický, from his "Peasant Ballads" (), which is based on a Czech legend about a small army sleeping in the mountain of Blaník. Other Czech composers had previously been inspired by this legend, including Bedřich Smetana, who concluded his "Má vlast" set of symphonic poems with a piece named 'Blaník', and Zdeněk Fibich, who composed an opera with the same title. Vrchlický, however, had given the legend a unique pacifist twist. According to the original legend, the army will awake and kill enemies of the Czechs in a time of trouble. In Vrchlický's utopian version of the tale, the army remains asleep because weapons have been eradicated. The poem was printed in full in the original score.