The King, lost in the forest, is entertained by the charcoal burner, whose daughter Lidusÿka is in love with a young charcoal burner, Jeník. He is jealous of her association with the stranger, in whom she has confided, and becomes a soldier in the King's army, rising to the position of captain of the Royal Guard. Invited to the royal palace, the old charcoal burner is at first accused of inhospitality to the stranger in the forest, before Lidusÿka and Jeník are joined in a union that her father had earlier forbidden.

The first version of the opera proved beyond the possibilities of the Provisional Theatre in 1871. It was, therefore, a revised version that was first staged there in 1874. The first version was staged at the Prague National Theatre only in 1929. As with the majority of the other operas of Dvorÿak, the work is seldom heard abroad, although the overture has an occasional place in concert repertoire.