Shooting an apple off one's child's head, also known as apple-shot (from German Apfelschuss) is a feat of marksmanship with a bow 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", [1] 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 head. It is best known as William Tell's feat. [2]
The earliest known occurrence of the motif is from the 12th century, in Saxo Grammaticus' version of the story of Palnatoki, whom he calls Toko ( Gesta Danorum Book 10, chapter 7).
Toko, who had been for some time in the service of the king [ Harald Bluetooth ], had, by the deeds in which he surpassed his fellow-soldiers, made several enemies of his virtues. One day, when he had drunk rather much, he boasted to those who were at table with him, that his skill in archery was such that he could hit, with the first shot of an arrow, ever so small an apple set on the top of a wand at a considerable distance. His detractors hearing these words, lost no time in conveying them to the ears of the king. But the wickedness of the prince speedily conveyed the confidence of the father to the peril of the son, ordering the sweetest pledge of his life to stand instead of the wand, from whom, if the utterer of the boast did not strike down the apple which was placed on him at the first shot of his arrow, he should with his own head pay the penalty of his idle boast. . . . When the youth was led forth, Toko carefully admonished him to receive the whiz of the coming arrow as steadily as possible, with attentive ears, and without moving his head, lest by a slight motion of his body he should frustrate the experience of his well-tried skill. He made him also, as a means of diminishing his apprehension, stand with his back to him, lest he should be terrified at the sight of the arrow. He then drew three arrows from his quiver, and the first 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!" [3]
Palnatoki later kills the king.
In the 13th-century Þiðrekssaga , [4] 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 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. [5]
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 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), Tell is asked why he took more than one bolt out; at first he responds that it was out of habit, but when assured he will not be killed for answering honestly, says the second bolt was meant for Gessler's heart should he fail. In Schiller's play, the demand to shoot the apple off the boy's head motivates Gessler's murder.
In Heinrich Kramer's 1486 Malleus Maleficarum (Book 2, chapter 16), a related story occurs: Punker of Rohrbach (also spelled Puncker or Puncher) in the Upper Rhineland is said to have been ordered by "a very eminent person" in about 1430 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. [6] [7]
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 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. [8] [9] [10]
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: [11]
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. [11] [14] 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. [15] Hemingr later takes revenge by shooting the king dead at the Battle of Stamford Bridge. [16] There are also Norwegian and Faroese ballads on Hemingen unge. [9]
One related story turns the motif on its head: after matching him in swimming and in other shooting contests, King Olaf of Norway converted Eindriði Pansa (the Splay-Footed) from heathenry by shooting at either a chess piece or a writing tablet on Eindriði's son's head. The king's shot narrowly missed but the boy was unharmed; Eindriði gave in to his mother's and sister's pleas and did not try the feat himself. [17] [18] [19]
The motif was studied and written about as early as 1760 by Gottlieb Emmanuel von Haller and the pastor Simeon Uriel Freudenberger in a pamphlet in French and German with the title Der Wilhelm Tell, ein dänisches Mährgen (William Tell, a Danish Fable). [20] During the 19th century, several scholars wrote about the internationalism of the motif. In 1834 Thomas Keightley noted the similarities between Palnatoki's and Tell's stories. [21] There is a summary of the various versions in Jacob Grimm's Teutonic Mythology , [22] and another in John Fiske's Myths and Myth-Makers. [23] The most detailed precedes Child's edition of the ballad of "Adam Bell, Clim of the Clough, and William of Cloudesly." [24]
In an 1877 book on the historicity of the William Tell legend, Ernst Ludwig Rochholz connects the similarity of the Tell legend to the stories of Egil and Palnatoki with legends of a migration from Sweden to Switzerland during the Middle Ages. [25] He also adduces parallels in folktales among the Finns and the Lapps (Sami), and also from Norse mythology compares Ullr, called the "bow-god", Heimdall, and also Óðinn, who according to the Gesta Danorum Book 1, chapter 8.16, is said to have assisted Haddingus by shooting ten arrows from a crossbow in one shot, killing as many foes. [26] [27] Further comparing Indo-European and Oriental traditions, Rochholz concludes that the legend 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). [28]
Ragnar Lodbrok, according to legends, was a Viking hero and a Swedish and Danish king. He is known from Old Norse poetry of the Viking Age, Icelandic sagas, and near-contemporary chronicles. According to traditional literature, Ragnar distinguished himself by conducting many raids against the British Isles and the Holy Roman Empire during the 9th century. He also appears in Norse legends, and according to the legendary sagas Tale of Ragnar's Sons and a Saga about Certain Ancient Kings, Ragnar Lodbrok's father has been given as the legendary king of the Swedes, Sigurd Ring.
King Niðhad, Níðuðr or Niðungr was a cruel king in Germanic legend. He appears as Níðuðr in the Old Norse Völundarkviða, as Niðung in the Þiðrekssaga, and as Niðhad in the Anglo-Saxon poems Deor and Waldere.
William Tell is a folk hero of Switzerland. According to the legend, Tell was an expert mountain climber and marksman with a crossbow who assassinated Albrecht Gessler, a tyrannical reeve of the Austrian dukes of the House of Habsburg 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. Tell was considered the father of the Swiss Confederacy.
Styrbjörn the Strong according to late Norse sagas was a son of the Swedish king Olof, and a nephew of Olof's co-ruler and successor Eric the Victorious, who defeated and killed Styrbjörn at the Battle of Fyrisvellir. As with many figures in the sagas, doubts have been cast on his existence, but he is mentioned in a roughly contemporaneous skaldic poem about the battle. According to legend, his original name was Björn, and Styr-, which was added when he had grown up, was an epithet meaning that he was restless, controversially forceful and violent.
A legendary saga or fornaldarsaga is a Norse saga that, unlike the Icelanders' sagas, takes place before the settlement of Iceland. There are some exceptions, such as Yngvars saga víðförla, which takes place in the 11th century. The sagas were probably all written in Iceland, from about the middle of the 13th century to about 1400, although it is possible that some may be of a later date, such as Hrólfs saga kraka.
Palnatoke or Palnatoki, sometimes written Palna-Toki or Palna Toki, was a legendary Danish hero and chieftain of the island of Fyn. According to the Jómsvíkinga saga, Palnatoki founded the brotherhood of Jomsvikings and established its laws.
The blood eagle was a method of ritually executing a chosen member as detailed in late skaldic poetry. According to the two instances mentioned in the Sagas, the victims were placed in a prone position, their ribs severed from the spine with a sharp tool, and their lungs pulled through the opening to create a pair of "wings". There has been continuing debate about whether the rite was a literary invention, a mistranslation of the original texts, or an authentic historical practice.
Harthacnut or Cnut I was a semi-legendary King of Denmark. The old Norse story Ragnarssona þáttr makes Harthacnut son of the semi-mythic viking chieftain Sigurd Snake-in-the-Eye, himself one of the sons of the legendary Ragnar Lodbrok. The saga in turn makes Harthacnut the father of the historical king, Gorm. It has been suggested he is to be identified with the Hardegon of Northmannia whose early-10th century conquest of Denmark was related by Adam of Bremen.
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.
William Tell Told Again is a retelling of the William Tell legend in prose and verse with illustrations. The main prose element was written by P. G. Wodehouse, while Philip Dadd supplied the frontispiece and 15 full-page illustrations, all in colour. The 15 illustrations were each accompanied by a verse written by John W. Houghton, who also wrote the prologue and epilogue in verse.
Egil is a legendary hero of the Völundarkviða and the Thidreks saga. The name is from Proto-Germanic *Agilaz, and the same legend is reflected in Old English Ægil[ˈæɡil] of the Franks Casket and Alamannic Aigil of the Pforzen buckle.
William Tell is a drama written by Friedrich Schiller in 1804. The story focuses on the legendary Swiss marksman William Tell as part of the greater Swiss struggle for independence from the Habsburg Empire in the early 14th century. Gioachino Rossini's four-act opera Guillaume Tell was written to a French adaptation of Schiller's play.
The Golden Bird is a fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm about the pursuit of a golden bird by a gardener's three sons.
Helga þáttr Þórissonar is a þáttr or short legendary saga found within the Saga of Ólaf Tryggvason in the Flateyjarbók.
Velents þáttr smiðs is the name given to the part of the Þiðrekssaga af Bern saga that deals with Wayland the Smith.
Böðvildr, Beadohild, Bodil or Badhild was a princess, the daughter of the evil king Níðuðr/Niðhad/Niðung who appears in Germanic legends, such as Deor, Völundarkviða and Þiðrekssaga. Initially, she appears to have been a tragic victim of Wayland the smith's revenge on her father, but in later Scandinavian versions, she becomes Wayland's wife and the mother of the hero Viðga of the Þiðrekssaga and medieval Scandinavian ballads.
The 'Tell Monument' is a memorial to William Tell in the market place of Altdorf, Canton of Uri, Switzerland.
Death in Norse paganism was associated with diverse customs and beliefs that varied with time, location and social group, and did not form a structured, uniform system. After the funeral, the individual could go to a range of afterlives including Valhalla, Hel and living on physically in the landscape. These afterlives show blurred boundaries and exist alongside a number of minor afterlives that may have been significant in Nordic paganism. The dead were also seen as being able to bestow land fertility, often in return for votive offerings, and knowledge, either willingly or after coercion. Many of these beliefs and practices continued in altered forms after the Christianisation of the Germanic peoples in folk belief.
The Bundeslied or Tellenlied is a patriotic song of the Old Swiss Confederacy. Its original composition dates to the Burgundian Wars period (1470s). The oldest extant manuscript text was written in 1501, the first publication in print dates to 1545. It consists of stanzas of six lines each, with a rhyming scheme of A-A-B-C-C-B. It is one of the oldest existing records of the legend of Swiss national hero William Tell.
William Tell is a 1903 French silent short film directed by Lucien Nonguet and distributed in France by Pathé Frères. The original French title is Guillaume Tell. It is the first film adaptation of the eponymous play by Friedrich Schiller.