William Tell: was the legendary Swiss hero a real person?

Nick Hamm’s film William Tell frames its titular hero in a different light, one in which Tell reluctantly rises as a leader to protect his family, his people and his homeland. Claes Bang stars as William Tell, alongside Connor Swindells (from SAS Rogue Heroes), Jonathan Pryce and Ben Kingsley.

But if there is one thing known about the figure of William Tell above all else, it is his skill with a crossbow

Like the fabled English archer Robin Hood, his aim had to be true as he performed his most famous deed: shooting an apple on top of his son’s head.

Why did William Tell shoot an apple off his son’s head?

William Tell was forced to aim his crossbow at his son, Walter, by a tyrannical official in Altdorf, in the canton of Uri.

At the time, the land that would become Switzerland consisted of administrative territories, or cantons, which had fallen under the control of the Habsburg rulers of Austria.

As the story goes, Albrecht Gessler, a Habsburg agent looking to bring the people of Altdorf to heel, ordered that a hat be placed on a pole in the town square and everyone who passed by would have to bow before it in an act of submission.

But on 18 November 1307, Tell, a skilled huntsman and mountaineer from Burglen, refused to bow. He was arrested and faced execution, but Gessler offered him a chance to walk free if he could prove his aim with a crossbow by shooting an apple placed on top of his son’s head.

Tell split the apple and so won his freedom. When Gessler noticed that the huntsman had prepared a second crossbow bolt. When he asked why, a defiant Tell claimed that if he had failed in his shot and hurt his son, he would have killed Gessler then and there.

Arrested for this slight, Tell was sent to the dungeons of Küssnacht. While being taken across Lake Lucerne, a storm threatened to sink the boat and he was released so that he could help make it back to shore. There, Tell managed to escape and ambushed Gessler, killing him with the second bolt.

What did William Tell have to do with Swiss independence?

After killing Gessler, Tell met with other men representing the cantons of Uri, Schwyz and Unterwalden, who had been wronged by the Habsburgs, and in the mountain meadow of Rutli they took an oath of allegiance. They swore to unite against their oppressors so that the people could be free.

Today, the Rutli Oath is regarded as the symbolic founding of the Old Swiss Confederacy, which fought against the Habsburgs throughout the 14th century and achieved its independence in the 17th century. It is marked with Swiss National Day every 1 August.

Tell became inextricably linked with the oath, despite it being dated to 1291, almost two decades before Gessler and the apple. The event itself is thought to be the stuff of legend as well.

Was William Tell a real person?

Despite a reputation enjoyed in Switzerland for centuries, there is no definitive evidence that William Tell ever existed. His famous shooting of the apple is a legend, based on non-contemporary writings.

The earliest-surviving mention of Tell’s story did not appear until the 1470s, well over a century after Tell’s supposed exploits, in a collection of medieval manuscripts called the White Book of Sarnen. Around the same time, a patriotic song was composed that told of his deeds, the Tellenlied.

The primary account came even later in the Chronicon Helveticum, a chronicle of Swiss history by the scholar Gilg Tschudi from the mid-16th century. Tschudi embellished and added to the story, including giving Tell a first name – Wilhelm, or William – and a date for his death, 1354.

If there was no William Tell, how did the Swiss Confederacy really become independent?

The peoples of Uri, Schwyz and Unterwalden did agree to a union in 1291, regardless of whether it took place at Rutli or not. The Federal Charter established the Eternal Alliance of the League of the Three Forest Cantons against encroaching Austrian control.

During the 14th century, Swiss troops achieved against-the-odds victories against Habsburg armies, including at the battles of Morgarten (1315), Sempach (1386) and Nafels (1388). All the while, more cantons joined the Confederacy and it grew into a political powerhouse in its own right.

As the struggle for independence continued, the iconography of the early revolutionary days was venerated, namely the legends of Tell and the Rutli Oath. For instance, the earliest mention of Tell, the White Book of Sarnen, came around the time of the Burgundian Wars, when the Swiss emerged as a major European power.

This was followed at the end of the 15th century by a great Swiss victory over the Habsburgs in the Swabian War. From then, the Confederacy was all but independent, although it would not be official until the Treaty of Westphalia that ended the Thirty Years’ War in 1648.

How has William Tell’s legacy changed over the years?

By the time that Tell’s existence was the subject of significant study in the 19th century, he had become an integral part of the Swiss story as a national symbol of independence. His reputation was rejuvenated at times of intense national pride, such as the Restoration and Regeneration periods following the rule of Napoleon and the resultant civil war, and there was no need to question the veracity of the hero’s story.

In 1804, the play Wilhelm Tell by German playwright Friedrich von Schiller was first performed. This, in turn, inspired the opera, William Tell, by Rossini, which premiered in 1829.

His influence spread beyond the borders of Switzerland too. Tell was regarded as a hero of the people by the French Revolution, which opposed the Habsburgs (of which the maligned queen Marie Antoinette belonged), and he has been cited as a symbol not only of Swiss independence but liberalism around the world.

Yet the lack of contemporary evidence eventually led to questions about the surviving accounts. In particular, Tell’s famous apple-shooting act bears more than a resemblance to another analogous motif across medieval folklore. This goes back to Palnatoke, a Danish chieftain in the 10th century who was forced to shoot an apple from his son’s head by Harald Bluetooth.

When the brothers Gottlieb Emanuel and Albert von Haller pointed this out in their 1760 pamphlet, William Tell: A Danish Fable, it was met with outrage. A copy was burned in the town square of Altdorf and the author had to make public apologies.

Whether he actually existed or not has become immaterial: William Tell is a Swiss national hero and icon. In that same square a bronze statue of Tell, with his crossbow on his shoulder and his arm around his son, by sculptor Richard Kissling was erected in 1895.

And the year carved on the base is not 1291, but 1307; perhaps as a permanent reminder that some stories are too good to let the facts get in the way.

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