Shooting an apple off one's child's head, also known as apple-shot (from German ') is a feat of marksmanship with a bow that occurs as a motif in a number of

legend A legend is a Folklore genre, genre of folklore that consists of a narrative featuring human actions, believed or perceived, both by teller and listeners, to have taken place in human history. Narratives in this genre may demonstrate human valu ...

s in Germanic folklore (and has been connected with non-European folklore). In the

Stith Thompson Stith Thompson (March 7, 1885 – January 10, 1976) was an American folklorist: he has been described as "America's most important folklorist". He is the "Thompson" of the Aarne–Thompson–Uther Index, which indexes folktales by type, and the ...

Motif Index The ''Motif-Index of Folk-Literature'' is a six volume catalogue of motifs, granular elements of folklore, composed by American folklorist Stith Thompson (1932–1936, revised and expanded 1955–1958). Often referred to as Thompson's motif-index ...

it is F661.3, described as "Skillful marksman shoots apple from man's head" or "apple shot from man's head", though it always occurs in the form of the

marksman A marksman is a person who is skilled in precision shooting using projectile weapons (in modern days most commonly an accurized scoped long gun such as designated marksman rifle or a sniper rifle) to shoot at high-value targets at longer-than-u ...

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 (german: Wilhelm Tell, ; french: Guillaume Tell; it, Guglielmo Tell; rm, Guglielm Tell) is a folk hero of Switzerland. According to the legend, Tell was an expert mountain climber and marksman with a crossbow who assassinated Albr ...

's feat.

Examples

Palnatoki

The earliest known occurrence of the motif is from the 12th century, in

Saxo Grammaticus Saxo Grammaticus (c. 1150 – c. 1220), also known as Saxo cognomine Longus, was a Danish historian, theologian and author. He is thought to have been a clerk or secretary to Absalon, Archbishop of Lund, the main advisor to Valdemar I of Denmark. ...

' version of the story of

Palnatoki Palnatoke or Palnatoki, sometimes written Palna-Toki or Palna Toki (Old Norse: or ), was a legendary Danish hero and chieftain of the island of Fyn. According to the ''Jómsvíkinga saga'', Palnatoki founded the brotherhood of Jomsvikings and esta ...

, whom he calls ''Toko'' (''

Gesta Danorum ''Gesta Danorum'' ("Deeds of the Danes") is a patriotic work of Danish history, by the 12th-century author Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Literate", literally "the Grammarian"). It is the most ambitious literary undertaking of medieval Denmark an ...

'' Book 10, chapter 7).

Toko, who had been for some time in the service of the king /nowiki>Harald Bluetooth">Harald_Bluetooth.html" ;"title="/nowiki>Harald Bluetooth">/nowiki>Harald Bluetooth/nowiki>, 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, Agilaz, Egill, brother of Wayland the Smith, 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

, supposedly happening to start off the Swiss revolution, written first in the 15th-century ''

White Book of Sarnen The ''White Book of Sarnen'' (german: Weisses Buch von Sarnen) is a collection of medieval manuscripts compiled in the late 15th century by Hans Schriber, state secretary (''Landschreiber'') in the Swiss Confederation canton Obwalden. This volume ...

'', then in

Aegidius Tschudi Aegidius (or Giles or Glig) Tschudi (5 February 150528 February 1572) was a Swiss statesman and historian, an eminent member of the Tschudi family of Glarus, Switzerland. His best known work is the Chronicon Helveticum, a history of the early S ...

's 16th-century ''

Chronicon Helveticum The ''Chronicon Helveticum'' (Latin for "Swiss Chronicle") is one of the oldest accounts of the early history of the Swiss Confederation. The rough draft of the ''Chronicon Helveticum'' was written by Swiss historian Aegidius Tschudi in 1550.Bergi ...

'', and later the basis for

Friedrich Schiller Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller (, short: ; 10 November 17599 May 1805) was a German playwright, poet, and philosopher. During the last seventeen years of his life (1788–1805), Schiller developed a productive, if complicated, friends ...

's 1804 play. Tell is arrested for failing to bow in respect to the hat that the newly appointed Austrian ''

Vogt During the Middle Ages, an (sometimes given as modern English: advocate; German: ; French: ) was an office-holder who was legally delegated to perform some of the secular responsibilities of a major feudal lord, or for an institution such as ...

'',

Albrecht Gessler Albrecht Gessler, also known as Hermann, was a legendary 14th-century Habsburg bailiff (german: Landvogt) at Altdorf, whose brutal rule led to the William Tell rebellion and the eventual independence of the Old Swiss Confederacy. Legend Accordin ...

, 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''

Heinrich Kramer Heinrich Kramer ( 1430 – 1505, aged 74-75), also known under the Latinized name Henricus Institor, was a German churchman and inquisitor. With his widely distributed book ''Malleus Maleficarum'' (1487), which describes witchcraft and endorses ...

's 1486 ''

Malleus Maleficarum The ''Malleus Maleficarum'', usually translated as the ''Hammer of Witches'', is the best known treatise on witchcraft. It was written by the German Catholic clergyman Heinrich Kramer (under his Latinized name ''Henricus Institor'') and first ...

'' (Book 2, chapter 16), a related story occurs:

Punker of Rohrbach Punker () is a legendary figure of the 15th century from the German village of Rohrbach (now part of the city of Heidelberg). According to the ''Malleus Maleficarum.'' around 1430 there was an extremely accurate archer named Punker who was rumoure ...

(also spelled Puncker or Puncher) 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

Wewelsfleth Wewelsfleth is a municipality in the district of Steinburg, in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after ...

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.

Francis James Child Francis James Child (February 1, 1825 – September 11, 1896) was an American scholar, educator, and folklorist, best known today for his collection of English and Scottish ballads now known as the Child Ballads. Child was Boylston professor of r ...

, ''

The English and Scottish Popular Ballads The Child Ballads are 305 traditional ballads from England and Scotland, and their American variants, anthologized by Francis James Child during the second half of the 19th century. Their lyrics and Child's studies of them were published as ''T ...

'', Volume 3, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1888
p. 17

William of Cloudeslee

In the Northumbrian ballad of ''

Adam 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. Their story is told in Child Ballad 116 entitled ''Ada ...

, Clym of the Clough, and Wyllyam of Cloudeslee'', which was a source of

Walter Scott Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet (15 August 1771 – 21 September 1832), was a Scottish novelist, poet, playwright and historian. Many of his works remain classics of European and Scottish literature, notably the novels ''Ivanhoe'', ''Rob Roy (n ...

's ''

Ivanhoe ''Ivanhoe: A Romance'' () by Walter Scott is a historical novel published in three volumes, in 1819, as one of the Waverley novels. Set in England in the Middle Ages, this novel marked a shift away from Scott’s prior practice of setting st ...

'', 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:Grimm
p. 382

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
core Core or cores may refer to: Science and technology * Core (anatomy), everything except the appendages * Core (manufacturing), used in casting and molding * Core (optical fiber), the signal-carrying portion of an optical fiber * Core, the central ...
paces him froe, And I myself with a broad arrowe Shall cleave the apple in towe.

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 Grimm Jacob Ludwig Karl Grimm (4 January 1785 – 20 September 1863), also known as Ludwig Karl, was a German author, linguist, philologist, jurist, and folklorist. He is known as the discoverer of Grimm's law of linguistics, the co-author of th ...

's ''

Teutonic Mythology Germanic paganism or Germanic religion refers to the traditional, culturally significant religion of the Germanic peoples. With a chronological range of at least one thousand years in an area covering Scandinavia, the British Isles, modern Germ ...

'', and another in John Fiske's ''Myths and Myth-Makers''. The most detailed precedes

Child A child ( : children) is a human being between the stages of birth and puberty, or between the developmental period of infancy and puberty. The legal definition of ''child'' generally refers to a minor, otherwise known as a person younger ...

'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, Nordic, or Scandinavian mythology is the body of myths belonging to the North Germanic peoples, stemming from Old Norse religion and continuing after the Christianization of Scandinavia, and into the Nordic folklore of the modern period ...

compares

Ullr In Norse mythology, Ullr (Old Norse: ) is a god associated with archery. Although literary attestations of Ullr are sparse, evidence including relatively ancient place-name evidence from Scandinavia suggests that he was a major god in earlier G ...

, called the "bow-god",

Heimdall In Norse mythology, Heimdall (from Old Norse Heimdallr) is a god who keeps watch for invaders and the onset of Ragnarök from his dwelling Himinbjörg, where the burning rainbow bridge Bifröst meets the sky. He is attested as possessing for ...

, and also

Óðinn Odin (; from non, Óðinn, ) is a widely revered god in Germanic paganism. Norse mythology, the source of most surviving information about him, associates him with wisdom, healing, death, royalty, the gallows, knowledge, war, battle, victory, ...

, who according to the ''Gesta Danorum'' Book 1, chapter 8.16, is said to have assisted

Haddingus Hadingus was one of the earliest List of legendary kings of Denmark, legendary Danish kings according to Saxo Grammaticus' ''Gesta Danorum'', where he has a detailed biography. Georges Dumézil and others have argued that Hadingus was partially mo ...

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).Rochholz, pp. 35–41.

References

Sources

Helmut de Boor Helmut de Boor (born 24 March 1891 in Bonn, died 4 August 1976 in Berlin) 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 attend ...

. "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 Dundes Alan Dundes (September 8, 1934 – March 30, 2005) was an American folklorist. He spent much of his career as a professional academic at the University of California, Berkeley and published his ideas in a wide range of books and articles. H ...

. "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.
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.

External links

ballad text {{Authority control European folklore Marksmanship William Tell History of archery