Altdorf and Burglen: William Tell Country

William Tell: Apple on the Son's Head. 

An Oppressor. 

Fabulous Shot Splitting the Apple, Not the Son's Head. 

Fiction or Fact?

William Tell & Son, sculptures, William Tell Museum, Burglen, Switzerland.

.

William Tell! Who dares question the story.  His own town does. So:  Get there.  Up and back the switchbacks, higher, higher, pass the last snowfield, and melt-lake in the Alps. 

Alpine snowfield, glacier, Switzerland

Pass another lovely chalet.

Chalet, Switzerland

See another beautiful Alpine village.

Alpine village, Switzerland

And arrive at ... Altdorf. Think the William Tell Overture.  Now - quick.  Open your window so you can turn up the volume, and go toYoutube at ://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TOW_4TXJ2Q/  Got it?  Turn up the volume even more.  This is Rossini, folks. It's only 3 minutes.  You can listen and watch that long.  Riccardo Muti conducting.

And this is ... Altdorf!

Altdorf, Switzerland. William Tell and Son, statue, center square

Just up the road is Burglen, the smaller village that claims William Tell as its own.

Burglen, William Tell on church clock tower

Stay at the William Tell Hotel, but take your earplugs.  This is the bell-tower and the view of it from our window.  It gongs every quarter hour.

Burglen, Church Bell Tower at night, Switzerland.  Bong.


See a live videotaping of the sport of flagging. These swirled about for a length of time. There is William Tell on the pedestal. Was this a holiday?


Burglen, Switzerland, flaggers flagging

Next to the church is a graveyard where people's occupations are carved instead of dull stone headstones.

Church graveyard, carved markers, Burglen, Switzerland

Wake up to the view.

Alpine view, Burglen, William Tell Hotel

The view changes every few minutes.


Burglen Alps view, from William Tell Hotel

Here, we are told,  is the mother of little Boy Tell, and wife of William.

Sculpture, Mrs. William Tell, and son, pre-apple anxiety

And the museum that houses the documents (or copies? they looked original, but hard to tell) that have anything to do with William Tell and the story. 


William Tell Museum, Burglen, Switzerland, old print

Reread the story, FN 1.  The problem is, there is no documentation for it.  There is nothing in any contemporary record of his birth, life, events, the arrow, the apple.  There is no real William Tell.


What? No William Tell?? Burglen, Switzerland acknowledges.

It was only a century later that, given events at that later time, it became important to show roots of Swiss independence, of cantons banding together to oppose oppression (here by the Habsburgs of Austria who had moved south).  William Tell evolved in the public consciousness as embodying all the virtues they needed, and wanted to believe had been really in one person. 

Graveyard, Burglen, Switzerland. Individualized. Add some legends here ....

Back to the lovely graveyard.  Sometimes people die, but the stories that people need to believe, live on or get created if they were not there to begin with. 

William, you never were; but tell that to the angels. See http://www.nytimes.com/1994/03/30/world/lausanne-journal-the-swiss-debunk-william-tell-and-all-that.html/. We want our overture. Read the story at ://www.mainlesson.com/display.php?author=baldwin&book=fifty&story=tell/  How can you not believe? Don't tell me about debunk. No way.

This is like Robin Hood. Go to Nottingham. There they do have record books, but with dozens, if not a hundred, Robin Hoods (the John Doe name of the time) for any unknown miscreant, whose exploits were eventually attributed to one RobinhoodRobinhoodRidingthroughtheglen ....

Back to Rossini.
Ba-da-bump, Ba-da-bump, Ba-da BUMP BUMP BUMP
__________________
FN 1.  The William Tell Story, retold

Who was he?  We all think we know.

We think apples on heads, oppression by invaders, a strong father who would not bow to the foreign ruler's hat up there on the pole. The penalty:  shoot the apple off your son's head, with a crossbow. A distraught mother. The child at the tree, the bowshot, yes! the apple splits and the child lives!

It gets better. The Bailiff sees a second arrow in Tell's quiver. What is this second arrow, asks Gessler, the Bailiff of Uri, the foreign oppressor for the Habsburgs, Austrian variety.


It was for you if I had missed, hisses Tell.

Arrest him! They do.

They put him, tied, in a boat to go across the lake. Storm. Only William can save them. Untie him so he can help! They do, he does, and escapes, only to return another time and kill the evil Bailiff Gessler. Or mayor. Whatever. See ://www.1911encyclopedia.org/William_Tell/

Yes, say the Swiss, recalling. Independence, no bowing to foreign rule. We are Swiss. The cantons were stirred to band together with the story and the rest is history - the Swiss federation, the Confederation Helvetia (Helvetii, the original tribes), CH on the license plates, Switzerland.