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William Tell
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William Tell shooting at the apple, woodcut from Ein Schönes Spiel
von Wilhelm Thellen, by O. Schweitzer, 1698. Bronze statue of William Tell with a crossbow and his son, standing on a stone pedestal in Altdorf, Switzerland, with buildings and Swiss flags in the background.
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German:
Wilhelm Tell
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William Tell shooting at the apple, woodcut from Ein Schönes Spiel
von Wilhelm Thellen, by O. Schweitzer, 1698.
William Tell shooting at the apple, woodcut from Ein Schönes Spiel
von Wilhelm Thellen, by O. Schweitzer, 1698.

William Tell

Swiss hero
Also known as: Wilhelm Tell
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History

William Tell, Swiss legendary hero who symbolized the struggle for political and individual freedom.

The historical existence of Tell is disputed. According to popular legend, he was a peasant from BĂŒrglen in the canton of Uri in the 13th and early 14th centuries who defied Austrian authority, was forced to shoot an apple from his son’s head, was arrested for threatening the governor’s life, saved the same governor’s life en route to prison, escaped, and ultimately killed the governor in an ambush. These events supposedly helped spur the people to rise up against Austrian rule.

The classic form of the legend appears in the Chronicon Helveticum (1734–36), by Gilg Tschudi, which gives November 1307 as the date of Tell’s deeds and New Year 1308 as the date of Switzerland’s liberation. There is no evidence, however, for the existence of Tell; but the story of the marksman’s test is widely distributed in folklore. In the early Romantic era of nationalist revolutions, the Tell legend attained worldwide renown through the stirring play Wilhelm Tell (1804) by the German dramatist Friedrich von Schiller.