The Cunning Little Vixen the vixen, and sits at the tree grieving the loss of both the vixen and Terynka. His grief grows until, just as in the beginning of the opera, a frog unexpectedly jumps in his lap, the grandson of the one who did so in act one. This reassurance of the cycle of death leading to new life gives his heart a deep peace. Apart from the Excursions of Mr Broucek, this is Janáček's lightest opera, and, despite the titular vixen's death at the end of the work, it stands in contrast to the often brutally serious nature of operas such
The White Doe of Rylstone to make a weekly pilgrimage from Rylstone to Bolton Abbey. The historical parts of the story of "The White Doe" are taken from a ballad called "The Rising in the North", which Wordsworth had read in Percy's "Reliques of Ancient English Poetry", and also from Nicolson and Burn's "The History and Antiquities of the Counties of Westmorland and Cumberland". The influence of other ballads from Percy's "Reliques" has also been traced in the poem, and the dedicatory poem to "The White Doe" is filled with references to Spenser's "The Faerie Queene". The metre of the poem is similar to that