In Search of William Tell

It was while I was relaxing on the settee listening to the radio fast asleep (me, not the radio), that my inward eye beheld the spectacle of two men on horseback galloping across the American prairie. Then, faint at first but getting louder as I regained consciousness, I heard that well known film and television theme tune of the Lone Ranger, otherwise known as Rossini's overture to his opera 'William Tell'.

William Tell, - the Swiss equivalent of Robin Hood. Not quite, for while there are many stories of the adventures of Robin Hood, there is only one tale, with variations of course, of William Tell.

It all began way back in 1307 when Switzerland, which didn't exist as a nation but a collection of warring clans, was torn by internal strife. Way back in 1257, someone had asked the Hapsburg duke of Austria to come in and settle the feuds. Count Rudolph was only too happy to oblige, and marched in with his army. It wasn't long before the Austrians started behaving as if they owned the place. So much so that in 1307, Hermann Gessler, the newly appointed Austrian bailiff of Altburg, raised a pole in the village's central square with his hat on top and demanded that all the local townsfolk bow before it. Then, one day, a famous hunter, William Tell from Burglen, in Uri, close to Altdorf, walked into the square with his little son. They walked across the market-place, but when they passed the pole, Tell never bent his head; he stood as straight as a mountain pine. He was promptly dragged before Gessler, who, as a punishment for this heinous crime, ordered that an apple should be placed on the boy's head and that if Tell failed to dislodge it with a single shot from a distance of one hundred paces, both he and the boy would be put to death. Tell, taking two quarrels, or crossbow bolts, with him, marched off the appropriate distance, loaded his crossbow, aimed, and fired. The bolt hit the apple dead centre. Tell and his son were free.

But not for long. Gessler had noticed the extra bolt that Tell had taken with him, and asked him why he had done it. Tell's reply was to the point. "That was for you if I had missed, and I wouldn't have missed a second time." Gessler was furious, and ordered that Tell be taken prisoner and taken to the castle at Küssnacht, declaring "You will never see sun or moon again." Tell was taken to the shore of Lake Lucerne and thrown into a boat. When they reached the centre of the lake a violent storm sprang up. Realising that Tell was the only man strong enough to control the boat, he was released from his bonds. Tell managed to steer the boat to a flat rock by the edge of the lake, leaped ashore, and with a mighty shove with his foot, sent the boat back into the heaving waters. Realising that the men would get to shore eventually, he made his way to a narrow pass on the road to Küssnacht and waited behind a tree. When his ex-captors did arrive, he shot Gessler with that famous second bolt.

But that is not the end of the story. The most important part is yet to come. In a forest meadow, known today as Rütli, Tell met with three other men who had been wronged by the bailiffs or other hired hands of the Hapsburgs. They swore an oath, which most of the Swiss know by heart, to assist each other in adversity. This was the start of a war of national liberation which resulted in the formation of the Swiss nation we know today.

So what do we really know about William Tell and his legend? To start with, the full story was not set down until 1569, over 250 years after the supposed event, by the historian Aegidius Tschudi. This may well account for Tell's weapon being a crossbow. Unlike the longbow, the cross bow requires a mechanical aid to pull back the string so that another bolt can be fired. This would have taken so long and been so obvious that he would have been overpowered by Gesslers' men long before he was ready to shoot again. Then, 190 years later, someone discovered a forgotten copy of the Oath of Rütli which is dated "the beginning of August 1291", 16 years before it was supposed to have been taken. It also names the three representatives of the forest cantons who signed the Oath. None of them was named Tell. And what is more, no one has managed to find any historical references to a man called Tell, or Thaell, or Thall, or Tellen, which is how the name appears in different versions of the legend.

So where did the story come from. Sometime about the middle of the 18th. Century a scholar by the name of Gottlieb de Haller read a story in an old history of Denmark involving King Harald Bluetooth, who reigned from 936 to 987, and a Viking chieftain named Toko. During one evening of drunken debauchery, Toko boasted that he could do anything with his bow and arrow, even shoot an arrow off a pike at the other end of the hall. Harald Bluetooth took him up on this, but, instead of using a pike, he placed an apple on the head of Toko's son. There was no arguing with a king, so Toko took up his weapon, aimed, and shot off the apple. When the king asked Toko why he had two extra arrows ready Toko replied, "To kill you, sire, if I had killed my son." Bluetooth took this answer as being perfectly natural for a Viking, and ignored it. But Toko did not forgive or forget. He later joined the young crown prince, Sweyn Forkbeard, in a revolt against his father, and during some fighting he came across Bluetooth relieving himself behind a tree and put an arrow through his heart.

De Haller had this story published in his Book, William Tell: a Danish Fable. This provoked outrage throughout Switzerland. There was a court action, and a copy of the book was burned with due ceremony in the square of Altdorf. The author might well have been set ablaze as well if he had not made abject apologies, saying that it was just a literary exercise and not to be taken seriously.

A lot of people still believe that William Tell is a true historical figure. In the past four centuries there have been three civil wars in Switzerland, and in every one both sides marched under the banner of William Tell. In France, just about the time they were beheading Queen Marie Antoinette, who happened to have been born a Hapsburg princess, the revolutionaries named a Paris street after him. When Rossini's opera William Tell was first produced at La Scala, Milan, in 1829, the city was still part of the Hapsburg Empire, so the setting was discreetly changed to Scotland, and Tell and his son appeared wearing kilts. In 1940, Hollywood produced an animated cartoon entitled Popeye meets William Tell, in which Popeye plays the son and has a can of spinach shot off his head.

So, did William Tell really exist? If he did, why is it that nobody has yet found any historical reference to him. If he didn't, why did someone go to the trouble and expense of erecting a statue to the memory of him and his son in the market square of Altdorf in 1895? I leave you to make your own mind up.

Bill Hutchings