BOOK The myth wholly without historical founda tion. Utter impossibility of the Swiss story. but the documents which have preserved the terms of peace simply define the bounds of the imperial authority, without questioning that authority itself. In all this there is no real need of the exploits of Tell or rather there is no room for them, even if the existence of the Confederation were not traced back to a time which according to the legend would probably precede his birth. This legend, which makes Tell not less skilful as a boatman than as an archer, is not noticed by chroniclers who would gladly have retailed the incidents of the setting up of the ducal cap by Gesler in the market place, of Tell's refusal to do obeisance to it, of his capture, and of the cruelty which compelled him to shoot an apple placed on his son's head, of his release during the storm on the lake that he might steer the skiff, and finally of the death of Gesler by Tell's unerring shaft. When examined more closely, all the antiquities of the myth were found to be of modern manufacture. The two chapels which were supposed to have been raised by eye-witnesses of the events were 'trumpery works of a much more recent date,'-and if the tales of the showmen were true, the place had 'remained unchanged by the growth and decay of trees and otherwise for six centuries and a half.' Further, the hat set on a pole that all who passed by might do obeisance is only another form of the golden image set up that all might worship it on the plains of Dura, and here, as in the story of the Three Children, the men who crown the work of Swiss independence are three in number. Yet so important is this story as showing how utterly destitute of any residuum of fact is the mythology introtroduced into the history even of a well-known age, that I feel myself justified in quoting the passage in which M. Rilliet sums up the argument proving the absolute impossibility of the tale from beginning to end. "The internal history of the three valleys offers to the existence of a popular insurrection which freed them from the tyranny of King Albert of Austria a denial which the consequent conduct of this prince and that of his sons fully confirms. A revolt which would have resulted not only in defying his authority, but outraging it by the expul WILLIAM OF CLOUDESLEE. sion and murder of his officers, would not have been for one instant tolerated by a monarch not less jealous of his power than resolute to make it respected. So when we see him in the month of April 1308, when he went to recruit in Upper Germany for his Bohemian wars, sojourning on the banks of the Limmat and the Reuss, and approaching the theatre assigned to the rebellion, without making the slightest preparation or revealing any intention to chastise its authors; when we find him at the same time entirely occupied in celebrating the festival of the Carnival with a brilliant train of nobles and prelates; when we find him soon afterwards, on April 25, confirming to the abbey of Zurich the possession of domains comprehending the places which were the very centre of the revolt; when we find him, six days later, regardless of revelations about the plot which was to cost him his life, banqueting with the sons and the nephew whose hands were already raised against him, and thence proceed, full of eagerness, to meet the queen who was on her way join him, it seems impossible to admit that he was swallowing in silence an affront inflicted on him by insolent peasants, and which an inexplicable impunity could only render all the more mortifying to his self-love and compromising to his authority.' to 99 CHAP. II. sions of The myth is thus driven off the soil of the Helvetian Other verrepublic. We find it growing as congenially in almost the myth every Aryan land, and in some regions which are not Aryan of Tell. at all. It is the story of the ballad of Clym of the Clough, in which Cloudeslee performs not only the exploits assigned to Locksley in Sir Walter Scott's Ivanhoe,' but this very deed of Tell. Here the archer is made to say: 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 paces him froe, Hanging is to be the penalty in case of failure. The result is of course as in the myth of Tell; but the sequel which involves the actual death of the Vogt in that legend is repre BOOK II. sented in the English ballad by the hope which the king expresses that he may never serve as a mark for Cloudeslee's arrows. Here also Cloudeslee is one of a trio (along with Adam Bell and Clym of the Clough), which answers to the Swiss triumvirate; and Grimm is fully justified in remarking that Cloudeslee's Christian name and Bell's surname exhibit the two names of the great Swiss hero.1 By Saxo Grammaticus, a writer of the twelfth century, the story is told of Palnatoki, who performs the same exploit at the bidding of King Harold Gormson, and who when asked by the king why he had taken three arrows from his quiver when he was to have only one shot, replies, "That I might avenge on thee the swerving of the first by the points of the rest.' In the Vilkina Saga the tale is related, and almost in the same terms, of Egill, the fairest of men,' the brother of Völundr, our Wayland Sinith, while in the Malleus Maleficarum it is told of Puncher, a magician on the Upper Rhine. Another version is seen in the Saga of Saint Olaf, who challenges Eindridi, a heathen whom he wishes to convert, to the same task, only leading the way himself. Olaf's arrow grazes the child's head, and the pleading of Eindridi's wife then induces the king to put an end to the contest. With some differences of detail the legend reappears in the story of another Harold (Sigurdarson), in the eleventh century. Here the rival or opponent of the king is Heming, whose arrows, as Harold remarks, are all inlaid with gold, like the arrows of Phoibos. Enraged at many defeats, the king at last dares Heming to shoot a nut on the head not of his son but of his brother. Not less significant in some of its touches is the Faroese tradition, which attributes Tell's achievement to Geyti, Aslak's son, the king being the same who is confronted by Heming. Learning that Geyti is his match in strength, Harold rides to the house of Aslak, and asking where his 6 Ausser den angeführten deutschen und nordischen Erzählungen lässt sich noch eine altenglische in dem northumbrischen Liede von den drei Wildschützen Adam Bell, Clym, und William of Cloudesle aufweisen; der letzte, dessen Vorname, wie der Zuname des ersten, Bell, an Tell gemahnt, erbietet sich vor dem König, seinem siebenjährigen Schn einen Apfel auss haupt zu legen und 120 Schritte weit herab zu schiessen.'Grimm, D. Myth. 355. The passages from these three works are quoted at length by Dr. Dasent, Norse Tales, introduction xxxv.xxxix. OTHER VERSIONS OF THE MYTH OF TELL. youngest son is, receives for answer that he is dead and buried in the churchyard of Kolrin. The king insists on seeing the body, and the father replies that where so many lie dead it would not be easy to find the corpse of his son. But as Harold rides back over the heath, he meets a huntsman armed with a bow, and asking who he is, learns that it is the dead Geyti, who has returned to the land of the living, like Memnôn, or Euridykê, or Adonis. The story otherwise differs little, if at all, from that of Heming. Mr. Gould, who like Dr. Dasent has thoroughly examined this subject, cites from Castren a Finnish story, in which, as in the Tell myth, the apple is shot off a man's head; but the archer (and this feature seems specially noteworthy) is a boy of twelve years old, who appears armed with bow and arrows among the reeds on the banks of a lake, and threatens to shoot some robbers who had carried off his father as a captive from the village of Alajârvi. The marauders agree to yield up the old man if the boy will do by him as Tell and Cloudeslee do by their sons. The legend at the least suggests a comparison with the myth of the youthful Chrysâôr, who also is seen on the shore of the Delian sea; while the twelve years look much like the ten years of the Trojan contest, the hours of the night during which the sun lies hid from the sight of men until he comes forth ready for the work in which his triumph is assured. The myth might be traced yet further, if it were necessary to do so. In Dr. Dasent's words, 'it is common to the Turks and Mongolians; and a legend of the wild Samoyeds, who never heard of Tell or saw a book in their lives, relates it, chapter and verse, of one of their marksmen. What shall we say, then, but that the story of this bold master-shot was primæval amongst many tribes and races, and that it only crystallised itself round the great name of Tell by that process of attraction which invariably leads a grateful people to throw such mythic wreaths, such garlands of bold deeds of precious memory, round the brow of its darling champion.' Further still, it seems impossible not to discern the same myth in the legend which tells us of the Lykian Sarpêdôn, that when Isandros and Hippolochos 1 Norse Tales, introd. xxxv. BOOK The farshooting god. disputed with each other for the throne, his mother Laodameia offered him for the venture, when it was settled that the kingdom should belong to the man who could shoot a ring from the breast of a child without hurting him. The tale is here inverted, and the shot is to be aimed at the child who lies exposed like Oidipous on Kithairon, or Romulus among the reeds of the Tiber, but who is as sure to escape the danger as Tell and the others are to avoid the trap in which their enemies think to catch them. To say more is but to slay the slain. William Tell, the good archer, whose mythological character Dr. Dasent has established beyond contradiction, is the last reflection of the sun-god, whether we call him Indra, or Apollo, or Ulysses.'' Flexible character of Vishņu. SECTION XII.-—THE VIVIFYING SUN. In strictness of speech the Vedic Vishnu is nothing but a name. The writers of the Aïtareya-brahmana could still say, 'Agni is all the deities, Vishnu is all the deities.' Hence he rises sometimes to a dignity greater even than that of Dyaus and Indra, while at others he is spoken of as subordinate to them, or is regarded as simply another form of the three deities Agni, Vayu, and Sûrya. In some hymns he is associated with Indra as Varuņa is linked with Mitra, and Dyaus with Prithivi. 'All divine power, like that of the sky, was completely communicated to thee, Indra, by the gods (or worshippers), when thou, O impetuous deity, associated with Vishņu, didst slay Vritra Ahi, stopping up the waters.'3 In truth, it may almost without exaggeration be said that the whole Vedic theology may be resolved into a series of equations, the result being one quite consistent with a real monotheism. Thus Vishnu is himself Agni and Indra. 'Thou, Agni, art Indra, bountiful to the excellent; thou art Vishnu, the wide-stepping, the adorable."4 These are again identified with other gods: 1 Max Müller, Chips, &c. ii. 233. See Appendix B. 2 Max Müller, Sanskrit Lit. 391. R. V. vii. 20, 2; Muir, Sanskrit Texts, part iv. ch. ii. sect. 1. • R. V. ii. 1, 3; Muir, ib. |