"of the story is in the legend of William Tell, supposedly happening to start off the Swiss revolution, written first in the 15th-century ""White Book of Sarnen"", then in Aegidius Tschudi's 16th-century ""Chronicon Helveticum"", and later the basis for Friedrich Schiller's 1804 play. Tell is arrested for failing to bow in respect to the hat that the newly appointed Austrian ""Vogt"", Albrecht Gessler, has placed on a pole, and Gessler commands him to shoot an apple off his son's head with a single bolt from his crossbow. After splitting the apple with the single shot (supposedly on November 18, 1307),"
"the townsfolk bow before the hat. On 18 November 1307, William Tell visited Altdorf with his young son and passed by Gessler's hat, publicly refusing to bow to it, and so was arrested. Gessler – intrigued by Tell's famed marksmanship, yet resentful of his defiance – devised a cruel punishment: Tell and his son would be executed, but he could redeem his life by shooting an apple off the head of his son, Walter, in a single attempt. Tell split the apple with a bolt from his crossbow. However, Gessler noticed that Tell had drawn two bolts and discovered that"
"to bow to it, and was consequently arrested. Gessler was intrigued by Tell's famed marksmanship, but resentful of his defiance, so he devised a cruel punishment. Tell and his son were both to be executed; however, he could redeem his life by shooting an apple off the head of his son Walter in a single attempt. Tell split the apple with a bolt from his crossbow. Gessler then noticed that Tell had removed two crossbow bolts from his quiver, so he asked why. Tell was reluctant to answer, but Gessler promised that he would not kill him; he replied that,"
"Shooting an apple off one's child's head Shooting an apple off one's child's head, also known as apple-shot (from German """") is a feat of marksmanship with a bow or crossbow that occurs as a motif in a number of legends in Germanic folklore (and has been connected with non-European folklore). In the Stith Thompson Motif Index it is F661.3, described as ""Skillful marksman shoots apple from man's head"" or ""apple shot from man's head"", though it always occurs in the form of the marksman being ordered to shoot an apple (or occasionally another smaller object) off his own son's"
"to prove his extraordinary marksmanship (regarded by Kramer as a sign of consorting with the devil) by shooting a penny off the cap on his young son's head without disturbing the cap. He, too, kept a second arrow in reserve to kill the prince in case he failed. Henning Wulf, or von Wulfen, of Wewelsfleth in Holstein sided with Count Gerhard in 1472 and was banished by King Christian I of Denmark. In a folk tale, the king had him shoot an apple off his son's head, and a window in the Wewelsfleth church depicted the boy with an apple"
"that both heroes take more than one arrow out of their quiver. When asked why he pulled several arrows out of his quiver, Palnatoki, too, replies that if he had struck his son with the first arrow, he would have shot King Harald with the remaining two arrows. According to Saxo, Palnatoki later joins Harald's son Swein Forkbeard in a rebellion and kills Harald with an arrow. Non-Swiss figures: General: William Tell William Tell (in the four languages of Switzerland: ; ; ; ) is a folk hero of Switzerland. According to the legend, Tell was an expert marksman with"
"as the boy ran downhill. The legendary motif of the great archer forced to shoot an apple from his son's head appears among other Germanic nations, as the story of Egil in the ""Þiðrekssaga"", William of Cloudesley in an English ballad, Hemming Wolf in Holstein, Puncher in an Upper Rhenish legend in ""Malleus Maleficarum"", and most famously William Tell in Switzerland. The name has been interpreted in two different ways. The first is as an alternate Old Norse patronymic meaning ""Palni's (or Palnir's) (son) Tóki"". The other is as a nickname meaning ""Shaft-Toki"" or ""Toki the Archer"". Palnatoki was the"
"strong man, a mountain climber, and an expert shot with the crossbow. In his time, the House of Habsburg emperors of Austria were seeking to dominate Uri, and Tell became one of the conspirators of Werner Stauffacher who vowed to resist Habsburg rule. Albrecht Gessler was the newly appointed Austrian ""Vogt"" of Altdorf, Switzerland. He raised a pole under the village lindentree, hung his hat on top of it, and demanded that all the townsfolk bow before it. In Tschudi's account, on 18 November 1307, Tell visited Altdorf with his young son. He passed by the hat, but publicly refused"
"of the master marksman shooting an apple (or similar small target) was known outside the Germanic sphere and the adjacent regions (Finland and the Baltic) in India, Arabia, Persia and the Balkans (Serbia). Shooting an apple off one's child's head Shooting an apple off one's child's head, also known as apple-shot (from German """") is a feat of marksmanship with a bow or crossbow that occurs as a motif in a number of legends in Germanic folklore (and has been connected with non-European folklore). In the Stith Thompson Motif Index it is F661.3, described as ""Skillful marksman shoots apple from"
"and the king himself was baptized once between 960 and 965. Palnatoke convinced Sweyn to wage war on his father. In the mid-980s, Sweyn revolted against his father and seized the throne. Harald was driven into exile and died shortly afterwards. According to some accounts, Palnatoki himself slew Harald. In addition to religious motives, he may have been taking revenge for the death of his grandfather, Jarl Ottar, who was killed when Harald invaded Götaland. Saxo Grammaticus relates how Palnatoke (Toko) was forced by King Harald to use a single arrow to shoot an apple from his own son's head"
"on his head, pierced through by the arrow, while Henning's bow was undrawn but there was another arrow between his teeth. Between archer and boy there was a wolf. In the Northumbrian ballad of ""Adam Bell, Clym of the Clough, and Wyllyam of Cloudeslee"", which was a source of Walter Scott's ""Ivanhoe"", William of Cloudeslee tells the king he will put an apple on his seven-year-old son's head and shoot it off at 120 paces: <poem>I have a sonne seven years old; Hee is to me full deere; I will tye him to a stake— All shall see him that"
"urges Jemmy to flee, but he prefers to stay with his father. Gesler notices the affection Tell has for his son, and has Jemmy seized. Inspired, he devises his test: Tell must shoot an arrow through an apple balanced on Jemmy's head – should he refuse, both of them will die. The assembled Swiss are horrified at this cruelty, but Jemmy urges his father to courage, and refuses to be tied up for the challenge. Resigned, Tell retrieves his bow from the soldiers, but takes two arrows from his quiver and hides one of them. He sings an anguished aria"
"executed or shooting an apple off his son's head in one try. Tell succeeded in splitting the apple with his arrow, saving his own life. When Gessler asked why he had readied two arrows, he lied and replied that it was out of habit. After being assured that he wouldn't be killed, Tell finally admitted that the second was intended for the tyrant if his son was harmed. Gessler, enraged, had Tell arrested and taken by boat across Lake Lucerne to Küssnacht to spend the life he had saved in a dungeon. A sudden fierce storm made the crew terrified,"
"Adam Bell Adam Bell was a legendary English outlaw. He and his companions William of Cloudsley and Clym of the Clough lived in Inglewood Forest near Carlisle and were figures similar to Robin Hood. Their story is told in Child Ballad 116 entitled ""Adam Bell, Clym of the Cloughe and Wyllyam of Cloudeslee"". The basis of the tale has historical roots in the criminal activities of the Folville and Coterel gangs. At one point William of Cloudsley, who is famed as an archer, shoots an arrow through an apple on his son's head at six score paces, a feat also"
"to try whether Egill shot so well as was said or not, so he let Egill's son, a boy of three years old, be taken, and made them put an apple on his head, and bade Egill shoot so that the shaft struck neither above the head nor to the left nor the right. Like Palnatoki, he keeps two more arrows to kill the king in case he fails, but the king does not punish him for saying so, but rather praises him: ""The king took that well from him, and all thought it was boldly spoken."" The best-known version"
"made Tell a Hero. And yet I for striking down a greater tyrant than they ever knew am looked upon as a common cutthroat.""(He himself was shot to death, without standing trial, days later.) Following a national competition, won by Richard Kissling, Altdorf in 1895 erected a monument to its hero. Kissling casts Tell as a peasant and man of the mountains, with strong features and muscular limbs. His powerful hand rests lovingly on the shoulder of little Walter, but the apple is not shown. The depiction is in marked contrast with that used by the Helvetic Republic, where Tell"
"from Blienschwiller and Nicolas Ziegler from Stotzheim. Ulhmann soon gave up and sought refuge in Basel where he was arrested, convicted and put to death, his body subsequently being quartered. As he died he declared to his judges, ""sooner or later, the people's alliance will win"". Nicholas Zielger met a similar fate at Sélestat: it is not known what became of Jacques Hanser. Other leading protagonists were captured and punished: some had their fingers cut off while others were banished or fined. The Peasants' uprising of 1493 failed miserably thanks to measures implemented by the emperor's son, the future Emperor"
"Arnold von Winkelried Arnold von Winkelried or Arnold Winkelried is a legendary hero of Swiss history. According to 16th century Swiss historiography, Winkelried's sacrifice brought about the victory of the Old Swiss Confederacy in the Battle of Sempach (1386) against the army of the Habsburg Duke Leopold III of Austria. According to legend, the Swiss initially could not break the close ranks of the Habsburg pikemen. Winkelried cried: ""I will open a passage into the line; protect, dear countrymen and confederates, my wife and children..."" He then threw himself upon the Austrian pikes, taking some of them down with his"
"The Smith of Kochel The Smith of Kochel is a figure from Bavarian myth. According to this myth, he was a soldier in the Habsburg-Ottoman Wars (Battle of Vienna). Armed with nothing but a bar, he supposedly stove in the gates of Belgrade. He refused rewards for his heroic deed from the prince electors. Another legend attributed to him is leading the farmer rebellion against the imperial troops of the Habsburg Emperor Joseph I during the War of Spanish Succession. This culminated in the Sendlinger Mordweihnacht (""Sendling Christmas Massacre""). In literature, the smith is described as a man of over"
"his eldest son, Walbert, the hand of a princess of Constantinople. In the ""Nibelungenlied"", a Burgundian poem written around the turn of the 13th century, Alberich guards the treasure of the Nibelungen, but is overcome by Siegfried. The name Oberon is first attested to in the early 13th century ""chanson de geste"" entitled ""Les Prouesses et faitz du noble Huon de Bordeaux"", wherein it refers to an elven man of the forest encountered by the eponymous hero. Huon, son of Seguin count of Bordeaux, passed through the forest inhabited by Oberon. He was warned by a hermit not to speak"
"William Tell William Tell (in the four languages of Switzerland: ; ; ; ) is a folk hero of Switzerland. According to the legend, Tell was an expert marksman with the crossbow who assassinated Albrecht Gessler, a tyrannical reeve of the Habsburg dukes positioned in Altdorf, in the canton of Uri. Tell's defiance and tyrannicide encouraged the population to open rebellion and a pact against the foreign rulers with neighbouring Schwyz and Unterwalden, marking the foundation of the Swiss Confederacy. Set in the early 14th century (traditional date 1307, during the rule of Albert of Habsburg), the first written records"
"detail. Tschudi is known to habitually have ""fleshed out"" his sources, so that all detail from Tschudi not found in the earlier accounts may be suspected of being Tschudi's invention. Such additional detail includes Tell's given name Wilhelm, and his being a native of Bürglen, Uri in the Schächental, the precise date of the apple-shot, given as 18 November 1307 as well as the account of Tell's death in 1354. It is Tschudi's version that became influential in early modern Switzerland and entered public consciousness as the ""William Tell"" legend. According to Tschudi's account, William Tell was known as a"
"as a masterly archer, once he is forced by king Nidung to shoot an apple from the head of his son. He readies two arrows, but succeeds with the first one. Asked by the king what the second arrow was for, he said that had he killed his son with his first arrow, he would have shot the king with the second one. This tale is directly comparable to the legends of William Tell and Palnetoke. As opposed to Tell's case, the king doesn't try to punish Egil for his openness, but, to the contrary, commends him for it (chapter"
"only after he passes it by. The horse is featured only as a purchase, and he did not have to perform two tasks to win the Porcelain Maiden, the princess figure. Also, the hare is not transformed at the end of the tale. A similar variant fairy tale of French-Canadian origin is ""The Golden Phoenix"" collected by Marius Barbeau, and retold by Michael Hornyansky. It follows the hero Petit Jean, the youngest son of the King, who discovers the thief of his father's golden apple to be a golden Phoenix, a legendary bird. Other differences include a battle with 3"
"son with a silver drinking horn filled with gold and jewels and a famous ring, Svíagris. Then she gave Hrólf and his men twelve of the Swedish king's best horses, and all the armour and provisions they needed. Hrólfr took a fond farewell of his mother and departed over the Fyrisvellir. When they saw Aðils and his warriors in pursuit, they spread the gold behind themselves. Aðils saw his precious Svíagris on the ground and stooped to pick it up with his spear, whereupon Hrólf cut his back with his sword and screamed in triumph that he had bent the"
"commands that there should be dancing and singing to mark the century during which the empire has ""deigned to sustain [Swiss] weakness"", and a variety of dances and choruses follow. Soldiers have noticed Tell and his son in the crowd, refusing to pay homage to the hat, and drag him forward. Rodolphe recognises him as the man who assisted in Leuthold's escape, and Gesler orders his arrest. In a complex choir and quartet, the soldiers express their hesitation at arresting this famed archer (""C'est là cet archer redoutable"" – ""It's that redoubtable archer""), Gesler forces them to act, and Tell"
"base of the statue. Later proposals for the identification of Tell as a historical individual, such as a 1986 publication deriving the name ""Tell"" from the placename ""Tellikon"" (modern Dällikon in the Canton of Zürich), are outside of the historiographical mainstream. The Tell legend has been compared to a number of other myths or legends, specifically in Norse mythology, involving a magical marksman coming to the aid of a suppressed people under the sway of a tyrant. The story of a great outlaw successfully shooting an apple from his child's head is an archetype present in the story of Egil"
"bee here— And lay an apple upon his head, And goe six [score] paces him froe, And I myself with a broad arrowe Shall cleave the apple in towe.</poem> In ""Hemings þáttr Áslákssonar"" in the ""Orkneyinga saga"" (about 1200), Harald Hardrada challenges the archer Hemingr to shoot a hazelnut off his younger brother Björn's head, which he does. There are two versions of this ""þáttr"", one set in the Faroes, and in one Hemingr uses a spear to achieve the feat, rather than an arrow. Hemingr later takes revenge by shooting the king dead at the Battle of Stamford Bridge."
"Sigurd Sigurd (Old Norse: ) or Siegfried (Middle High German: Sîvrit) is a legendary hero of Germanic mythology, who killed a dragon and was later murdered. It is possible he was inspired by one or more figures from the Frankish Merovingian dynasty, with Sigebert I being the most popular contender. Older scholarship sometimes connected him with Arminius, victor of the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest. He may also have a purely mythological origin. Sigurd's story is first attested on a series of carvings, including runestones from Sweden and stone crosses from the British Isles, dating from the eleventh century. In"
"warrior's metal breastplate over her dress and grasping a silver cross she challenged them: ""Whom do you want to serve: me, your natural sovereign, or those who have stolen my inheritance?"" Won over, the regiment marched to the Winter Palace and arrested the infant Emperor, his parents, and their own lieutenant-colonel, Count von Munnich. It was a daring coup and, amazingly, succeeded without bloodshed. Elizabeth had vowed that if she became Empress she would not sign a single death sentence, an extraordinary promise for the time but one which she kept throughout her life, although there was still cruelty in"
"he shot struck the proposed mark. Toko then being asked by the king why he had taken so many arrows out of his quiver, when he was to make but one trial with the bow, ""That I might avenge on thee,"" said he, ""the error of the first by the points of the others, lest my innocence might hap to be afflicted and thy injustice to go unpunished!"" Palnatoki later kills the king. In the 13th-century ""Þiðrekssaga"", chapter 128, Egill, brother of Völund, is commanded by King Nidung to shoot an apple off his three-year-old son's head:Now the king wished"
"to Jemmy, instructing him (""Sois immobile"" – ""Stay completely still""), and the two separate. Finally, Tell draws his bow, shoots, and drives the arrow through the apple and into the stake. The people acclaim his victory, and Gesler is enraged. Noticing the second arrow, he demands to know what Tell intended for it. Tell confesses his desire to kill Gesler with the second arrow, and both he and Jemmy are seized for execution. Mathilde enters and claims Jemmy in the name of the emperor, refusing to let a child die (""Vous ne l'obtiendrez pas"" – ""You will not have him"")."
"Albrecht Gessler Albrecht Gessler, also known as Hermann, was a legendary 14th-century Habsburg bailiff () at Altdorf, whose brutal rule led to the William Tell rebellion and the eventual independence of the Old Swiss Confederacy. According to the ""Chronicon Helveticum"" by Aegidius Tschudi (1505–1572), in 1307 Gessler raised a pole in the market square of Altdorf, placed his hat atop it, and ordered all the townsfolk to bow before it. Tell, whose marksmanship and pride were legendary, publicly refused. Gessler's cruel wrath was tempered by his curiosity to test Tell's skill, so he gave Tell the option of either being"