and
“The creation of three Chapels (one of them—viz. at the Tell’s plat—in 1388, only 24 years after Tell’s death, and when there were 114 persons present in the Landsgemeinde of Uri who had personally known him)”.
He further states that
“The last of Tell’s posterity—a female named Verena—died in 1720. The male branch had become extinct in 1684, by the Death of John Martin Tell of Attinghausen. Tell (the famous Tell) resided at, and was Mayor of Bürglen, which is not half an hour’s walk from the village of Attinghausen. He lived for many years after the events celebrated in Schiller’s Play, performed his part at the battles of Morgarten and Laupen in 1315 and 1339, and perished, in 1354, in his generous attempt to rescue a child from the overflowing waters of the Schächen (the mountain torrent which flows through Bürglen and into the Reuss at Attinghausen).”
Moreover, there is the proved importance of tradition, as such. Something can and must be said for it. That certain episodes, accepted as fact, do not appear in written contemporary history, is not in itself safe proof of the falsity of those episodes. Just because no mention is made of Tell in the White Book of Sarnen, this is small reason for denouncing the hero as a mere replica of Toko, principal actor in an old Danish legend. The truthfulness of traditions handed down from generation to generation by word of mouth has frequently startled those who have set out to refute them. The tradition of the Flood, current among many widely separated and obscure peoples, has been proved by geology to be quite worthy of credence. A rolling stone may gather much moss; but the essential thing, the stone, is beneath the richly-tinted covering.
So, let critic and historian do their worst to damage William Tell; he will escape them as surely as he escaped Gessler. His name and deeds, be they fact or be they fiction, are so much part and parcel of the scenery, that nothing save a devastating convulsion of Nature can possibly bring them to naught. Landmarks must be obliterated, the whole landscape must be radically changed, if Tell is to sink into oblivion. As things are, go where you will around the Lake, he and his age are bound to assert themselves. Even the elements will combine to bring him to your mind. Walk from Brunnen along the magnificent Axenstrasse hewn by the Government from the rock-cliffs of the Axenberg as a strategic route; stroll on amid the red-barked pines, the rocks aglow with tufts of rosy Erinus alpinus, or with the rosy springtime heather, or the blood-red summer cranesbill, while Orange Tip, or White Admiral and Purple Emperor butterflies flit from flower to flower or from sun-patch to sun-patch along the road; stroll on to the wayside clearing where stands a stone memorial to the artist, Henry Telbin, who fell from this spot whilst sketching in 1860; sit here amongst the bright wild sunflowers[2] and gaze down the sheer rocks to the sparkling blue-green waters partly flooded in golden light, and take note of how calm and peaceful all is as the gay-awninged row-boats and the curiously ungainly steam cargo-barges steal about the surface. Now mark that
THE AXENBERG FROM BRUNNEN—AN AUTUMN EVENING