Image of William Tell. A folk hero of Switzerland. The legend goes as

William Tell. A folk hero of Switzerland. The legend goes as follows: William Tell, who originally...

IMAGE number: BL3310482
Image title: William Tell. A folk hero of Switzerland. The legend goes as follows: William Tell, who originally came from Burglen, was known as a strong man, mountain climber, and an expert shot with the crossbow. In his time, the Habsburg emperors of Austria were seeking to dominate Uri. Albrecht (or Hermann) Gessler, the newly appointed Austrian Vogt of Altdorf, raised a pole in the village's central square, hung his hat on top of it, and demanded that all the townsfolk bow before the hat. On 18 November 1307, Tell visited Altdorf with his young son and passed by the hat, publicly refusing to bow to it, and so was arrested. Gessler devised a cruel punishment: Tell and his son would be executed, but he could redeem his life by shooting an apple off the head of his son, Walter, in a single attempt. Tell split the apple with a bolt from his crossbow. But Gessler noticed that Tell had removed two crossbow bolts from his quiver, not one. Before releasing Tell, he asked why. Tell replied that if he had killed his son, he would have used the second bolt on Gessler himself.
Location: British Library, London, UK

Image description: William Tell, or the Patriot of Switzerland, etc. Author: Claris de Florian, Jean Pierre / London, 1829 Source/Shelfmark: 10711.a.13 First plate
Photo credit: From the British Library archive / Bridgeman Images
Image keywords: Switzerland / Europe / legend / mythology / william tell / hero / named people / colours / personalities / people / famous people / color / swiss / nationality / ethnicity / myths / myth / legends / wilhelm tell / colour / william

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	Dimension [pixels]	Dimension in 300dpi [mm]	File size [MB]
Large	3864 × 7076 px	327 × 599 mm	22.8 MB
Medium	559 × 1024 px	47 × 87 mm	894 KB

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