Shooting an apple off one's child's head
Encyclopedia
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 legend
s in Germanic folklore (and has been connected with non-European folklore). It is F661.3, "Skilful marksman shoots apple from man's head" or "apple shot from man's head" in the Stith Thompson
Motif Index
but 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.
' version of the story of Palnatoki, whom he calls Toko (Gesta Danorum
Book 10, chapter 7).
Palnatoki later kills the king.
, brother of Völund, is commanded by King Nidung to shoot an apple off his three-year-old son's head:
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."
, told 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.
's 1486 Malleus Maleficarum
(Book 2, chapter 16), a related story occurs: Punker, Puncker, or Puncher of Rohrbach 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.
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.
, 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:
(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
. There are also Norwegian and Faroese ballads on Hemingen unge.
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.
's Teutonic Mythology
, and another in John Fiske's Myths and Myth-Makers. The most detailed precedes Child
's edition of the ballad of "Adam Bell, Clim of the Clough, and William of Cloudesly."
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. 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. 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).
Bow (weapon)
The bow and arrow is a projectile weapon system that predates recorded history and is common to most cultures.-Description:A bow is a flexible arc that shoots aerodynamic projectiles by means of elastic energy. Essentially, the bow is a form of spring powered by a string or cord...
or crossbow
Crossbow
A crossbow is a weapon consisting of a bow mounted on a stock that shoots projectiles, often called bolts or quarrels. The medieval crossbow was called by many names, most of which derived from the word ballista, a torsion engine resembling a crossbow in appearance.Historically, crossbows played a...
that occurs as a motif in a number of legend
Legend
A legend is a narrative of human actions that are perceived both by teller and listeners to take place within human history and to possess certain qualities that give the tale verisimilitude...
s in Germanic folklore (and has been connected with non-European folklore). It is F661.3, "Skilful marksman shoots apple from man's head" or "apple shot from man's head" in the Stith Thompson
Stith Thompson
Stith Thompson was an American scholar of folklore. He is the "Thompson" of the Aarne-Thompson classification system.- Biography :...
Motif Index
Aarne-Thompson classification system
The Aarne–Thompson classification system is a system for classifying folktales. First developed by Antti Aarne and published in 1910, it was translated and enlarged by Stith Thompson...
but 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
William Tell
William Tell is a folk hero of Switzerland. His legend is recorded in a late 15th century Swiss chronicle....
's feat.
Palnatoki
The earliest known occurrence of the motif is from the 12th century, in Saxo GrammaticusSaxo Grammaticus
Saxo Grammaticus also known as Saxo cognomine Longus was a Danish historian, thought to have been a secular clerk or secretary to Absalon, Archbishop of Lund, foremost advisor to Valdemar I of Denmark. He is the author of the first full history of Denmark.- Life :The Jutland Chronicle gives...
' version of the story of Palnatoki, whom he calls Toko (Gesta Danorum
Gesta Danorum
Gesta Danorum is a patriotic work of Danish history, by the 12th century author Saxo Grammaticus . It is the most ambitious literary undertaking of medieval Denmark and is an essential source for the nation's early history...
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!"
Palnatoki later kills the king.
Þiðrekssaga
In the 13th-century Þiðrekssaga, chapter 128, EgillAgilaz
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 of the Franks Casket and Alamannic Aigil of the Pforzen buckle....
, 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.
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."
William Tell
The best known version of the story is in the legend of William TellWilliam Tell
William Tell is a folk hero of Switzerland. His legend is recorded in a late 15th century Swiss chronicle....
, told first in the 15th-century White Book of Sarnen
White Book of Sarnen
The White Book of Sarnen is a collection of medieval manuscripts compiled in the late 15th century by Hans Schriber in the canton of Obwalden. This volume, 258 pages in length, was given its name because of the white parchment in which it is bound...
, then in Aegidius Tschudi
Aegidius Tschudi
Aegidius Tschudi was an eminent member of the Tschudi family, of Glarus, Switzerland....
's 16th-century Chronicon Helveticum
Chronicon Helveticum
The Chronicon Helveticum is one of the oldest accounts of the early history of the Swiss Confederation.The rough draft of the Chronicon Helveticum was written by the historian Aegidius Tschudi from Glarus in 1550...
, and later the basis for Friedrich Schiller
Friedrich Schiller
Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller was a German poet, philosopher, historian, and playwright. During the last seventeen years of his life , Schiller struck up a productive, if complicated, friendship with already famous and influential Johann Wolfgang von Goethe...
's 1804 play. Tell is arrested for failing to bow in respect to the hat that the newly appointed Austrian Vogt
Vogt
A Vogt ; plural Vögte; Dutch voogd; Danish foged; ; ultimately from Latin [ad]vocatus) in the Holy Roman Empire was the German title of a reeve or advocate, an overlord exerting guardianship or military protection as well as secular justice...
, Albrecht Gessler
Albrecht Gessler
Albrecht Gessler was a probably legendary Habsburg bailiff at Altdorf, whose brutal rule led to the William Tell rebellion and the eventual independence of the Swiss Confederacy....
, 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.
Malleus Maleficarum
In Heinrich KramerHeinrich Kramer
Heinrich Kramer also known under the Latinized name Henricus Institoris, was a German churchman and inquisitor....
's 1486 Malleus Maleficarum
Malleus Maleficarum
The Malleus Maleficarum is an infamous treatise on witches, written in 1486 by Heinrich Kramer, an Inquisitor of the Catholic Church, and was first published in Germany in 1487...
(Book 2, chapter 16), a related story occurs: Punker, Puncker, or Puncher of Rohrbach 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.
Henning Wulf
Henning Wulf, or von Wulfen, of WewelsflethWewelsfleth
Wewelsfleth is a municipality in the district of Steinburg, in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany....
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.
William of Cloudeslee
In the Northumbrian ballad of Adam BellAdam 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...
, Clym of the Clough, and Wyllyam of Cloudeslee, which was a source of Walter Scott
Walter Scott
Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet was a Scottish historical novelist, playwright, and poet, popular throughout much of the world during his time....
's Ivanhoe
Ivanhoe
Ivanhoe is a historical fiction novel by Sir Walter Scott in 1819, and set in 12th-century England. Ivanhoe is sometimes credited for increasing interest in Romanticism and Medievalism; John Henry Newman claimed Scott "had first turned men's minds in the direction of the middle ages," while...
, 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:
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 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.
Hemingr Áslákson
In Hemings þáttr Áslákssonar in the Orkneyinga sagaOrkneyinga saga
The Orkneyinga saga is a historical narrative of the history of the Orkney Islands, from their capture by the Norwegian king in the ninth century onwards until about 1200...
(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
Battle of Stamford Bridge
The Battle of Stamford Bridge took place at the village of Stamford Bridge, East Riding of Yorkshire in England on 25 September 1066, between an English army under King Harold Godwinson and an invading Norwegian force led by King Harald Hardrada of Norway and the English king's brother Tostig...
. There are also Norwegian and Faroese ballads on Hemingen unge.
Eindriði Pansa
One related story turns the motif on its head: after matching him in swimming and in other shooting contests, King Olaf of NorwayOlaf II of Norway
Olaf II Haraldsson was King of Norway from 1015 to 1028. He was posthumously given the title Rex Perpetuus Norvegiae and canonised in Nidaros by Bishop Grimkell, one year after his death in the Battle of Stiklestad on 29 July 1030. Enshrined in Nidaros Cathedral...
converted Eindriði Pansa (the Splay-Footed) from heathenry
Germanic paganism
Germanic paganism refers to the theology and religious practices of the Germanic peoples of north-western Europe from the Iron Age until their Christianization during the Medieval period...
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.
Scholarly study
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). 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. There is a summary of the various versions in Jacob GrimmJacob Grimm
Jacob Ludwig Carl Grimm was a German philologist, jurist and mythologist. He is best known as the discoverer of Grimm's Law, the author of the monumental Deutsches Wörterbuch, the author of Deutsche Mythologie and, more popularly, as one of the Brothers Grimm, as the editor of Grimm's Fairy...
's Teutonic Mythology
Deutsche Mythologie
Deutsche Mythologie is a seminal treatise on Germanic mythology by Jacob Grimm. First published in Germany in 1835, the work is an exhaustive treatment of the subject, tracing the mythology and beliefs of the Ancient Germanic peoples from their earliest attestations to their survivals in modern...
, and another in John Fiske's Myths and Myth-Makers. The most detailed precedes Child
Francis James Child
Francis James Child was an American scholar, educator, and folklorist, best known today for his collection of folk songs known as the Child Ballads. Child was Boylston professor of rhetoric and oratory at Harvard University, where he produced influential editions of English poetry...
's edition of the ballad of "Adam Bell, Clim of the Clough, and William of Cloudesly."
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. He also adduces parallels in folktales among the Finns and the Lapps (Sami), and also from Norse mythology
Norse mythology
Norse mythology, a subset of Germanic mythology, is the overall term for the myths, legends and beliefs about supernatural beings of Norse pagans. It flourished prior to the Christianization of Scandinavia, during the Early Middle Ages, and passed into Nordic folklore, with some aspects surviving...
compares Ullr
Ullr
In early Germanic paganism, *Wulþuz appears to have been a major god, or an epithet of an important god, in prehistoric times....
, called the "bow-god", Heimdall
Heimdall
In Norse mythology, Heimdallr is a god who possesses the resounding horn Gjallarhorn, owns the golden-maned horse Gulltoppr, has gold teeth, and is the son of Nine Mothers...
, 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. 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).
Sources
- Helmut de BoorHelmut de BoorHelmut de Boor was a German medievalist.-Life and career:Helmut de Boor was the third child of the Byzantine studies scholar Carl Gotthard de Boor. He was educated in Breslau and attended the Universities of Freiburg, Marburg and Leipzig...
. "Die nordischen, englischen und deutschen Darstellungen des Apfelschussmotivs." Quellenwerk zur Entstehung der schweizerischen Eidgenossenschaft. III Chroniken III Anhang pp. 1-53. Aarau: Sauerländer, 1947. - Roger E. Mitchell and Joyce P. Mitchell. "Schiller's William Tell: A Folkloristic Perspective." Journal of American Folklore 83 (1970) 44-52.
- Alan DundesAlan DundesAlan Dundes, was a folklorist at the University of California, Berkeley. His work was said to have been central to establishing the study of folklore as an academic discipline. He wrote 12 books, both academic and popular, and edited or co-wrote two dozen more...
. "The Apple-Shot: Interpreting the Legend of William Tell." Western Folklore 50 (October 1991) 327-60. JSTOR. Reprinted in From Game to War and Other Psychoanalytic Essays on Folklore. Lexington, Kentucky: University Press of Kentucky, 1997. ISBN 0813120314. pp. 46-77. - Hemings þáttr Áslákssonar: An edition of texts from Flateyjarbók, Hrokkinskinna and Hauksbók. Ed. Gillian Fellows Jensen. Editiones Arnamagnæanæ series B. volume 3. Copenhagen: Munksgaard, 1962. OCLC 559417993.
- Th. Alwin. Henning Wulf, der ditmarsische Tell. Bonn: Heidelsmann, 1904. OCLC 250589189.