Based on a 13th century folksong, the screenplay was written by Ulla Isaksson. Bergman has often spoken of Akira Kurosawa's Rashomon (1950) as one of his favourite films. The Virgin Spring undoubtedly owes a debt to this work, as it also does to Victor Sjöström's cinematic studies of nature.

References 

Stig Björkman, Torsten Manns och Jonas Sima, Bergman on Berg­man (Norstedts, Stockholm 1970).