William Tell

A monument to William Tell a town called Altdorf in Switzerland.

William Tell was a folk hero from Switzerland. In the story, William Tell is a man who refused to bow down to pole that was set up by an army who had taken over the place where he lived. He was arrested and forced to shoot an apple off his son's head with a crossbow. If he did not, both he and his son would be killed. So he shot the apple off the son's head and did not harm his son. He is considered a legend and his actions helped form Switzerland as a nation.

Adaptions

Wilhelm Tell (William Tell), a play by Friedrich Schiller
Guillaume Tell (William Tell), an opera by Gioachino Rossini, based on Schiller's play

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William Tell Media

Tell is arrested for not saluting Gessler's hat (mosaic at the Swiss National Museum, Hans Sandreuter, 1901)
Tell's leap (Tellensprung) from the boat of his captors at the Axen cliffs; study by Ernst Stückelberg (1879) for his fresco at the Tellskapelle.
Page of the White Book of Sarnen (p. 447, first page of the Tell legend, pp. 447–449).
A depiction of the apple-shot scene in Sebastian Münster's Cosmographia (1554 edition).
The Hohle Gasse between Immensee and Küssnacht, with a second Tellskapelle (built in 1638).
An allegorical Tell defeating the chimera of the French Revolution (1798).
Official seal of the "smaller council" (kleiner Rath) of the Helvetic Republic.
William Tell depicted on Tell pattern playing cards