In 1973 Paavo Haavikko wrote a play for radio and in 1977 rang Sallinen to ask whether, if the composer was considering writing another opera, this story could become the libretto? Sallinen's first opera The Horseman had a libretto by Haavikko but the composer was cautious about taking up the suggestion. Eventually, having read the play, Sallinen came to like the ambiguous blend of tragedy and irony, wit and cruelty; he began composing in the summer of 1980. The opera was jointly commissioned by the Savonlinna Opera Festival, the Royal Opera, London, and the BBC, and is set during a future ice age and in the time of the Hundred Years' War. Around the time of writing this, his third opera, Sallinen commented "It’s always worthwhile to write an opera. If it’s a success, I’m happy, if it isn’t, somebody else’s happy".Quoted by de Gorog in From Sibelius to Sallinen (Greenwood Press, 1989), from Lehtinen T-M, Hako P, Kunin Kaasta Kuninkassen, 1987.
