Tales Between the Lines

III. The True Story of Wilhelm Tell

As some of you might know, @RainerSalt and @jinnis are native residents of a small alpine country in Central Europe. As such, they share the privilege to love cheese and chocolate but also to meet sporadically for infamous lunch dates.

On one of these, the coordinated double entry to one of @ScienceFiction's challenges was born.*

As happens, unsuspecting @TechieInAK left a rather innocent comment in Jinn's story, simply to congratulate both authors for the joint effort. Little did he know these simple few lines would trigger another avalanche of comments, undoubtedly clogging up his inbox for days to come.

From discussing tea, coffee, lunch, and the cookies of the dark side, the topic quickly shifted to the author @FriedrichSchiller's Epos 'Wilhelm Tell'—a story (well, actually it's a play, but we don't want to bore you with the details) suspiciously absent from Wattpad but nevertheless important for the identity of a certain alpine country... well, we already had this.

For those not in the know, and because it may be helpful for understanding the following chapters, here's a summary of the original story as told by @FriedrichSchiller:

Early last millennium, a group of mountain-locked peasants got tired of having to pay tribute to and being bossed around by the emperor's men and launched some acts of civil (and not so civil) unrest. (In today's context, these unruly peasants would probably be called terrorists, but because they finally won, they are heroes now.)

The peasants' bad manners made the emperor's bailiff Gessler (the villain) decide that it's time for a show of strength. So he set up a wooden pole in the village square, with his bailiffy hat on top of it, and any unruly peasant passing by was supposed to referentially greet the imperial piece of headwear. One of them didn't: Wilhelm Tell (aka Willy the Hero).

As the hero passed Gessler's pole in the company of his son Walterli, he failed to greet the hat, and the bailiff's men apprehended him. Gessler himself happened to ride by, and he ordered Tell (who was reputed to be an expert shot with the crossbow) to shoot an apple from Walterli's head.

When Tell prepared to shoot the fruit, he hid a second bolt in his sleeve, intending to kill Gessler if Walterli were hurt in the process. But, fortunately, the only one hurt was the apple—and Gessler's pride when he asked Tell about the second bolt and got an honest answer. To penalize such insubordination, Gessler decided to have Tell arrested.
To cut the end of the story short: On his way to prison, Tell escaped by jumping from a ship in the middle of a storm. In his righteous wrath, he then hunted down Gessler and killed the man on a forest road (which was quite a terroristy act if you look at it objectively).

And that was the beginning, of sorts, of that certain alpine country...

Anyway, tickled by their national nerve, @jinnis and @RainerSalt soon came up with the 21th century refined social media version of Schiller's work:

🤴🏻⚜️⛰🎩✊️😠👎👦🏻🏹🍎✌️👮🛶🌊🌲🌳🌲🏹⚜️☠️⚰️⛰✌️✌️✌️**

From there, another tale between the lines took off. How would it have affected the story if bailiff Gessler (the villain) would have sat a hamster instead of an apple on young Walterli's head? He then pressures Willy (or Wilhelm, Walter's father, the hero) to hit the apple (in Schiller's version) or the hamster (in our adaption) with his crossbow.

So, imagine the setting: Willy, the master shot, terroristy rebel and future national hero, aims his weapon, preparing for the legendary, dangerous shot. The hamster on Walter's head is frozen in fear, its bulging eyes on the crossbows' business end.

——
* See "Milking the Wimots" in "Fleeting Thoughts" by @RainerSalt and "Basic Rule" in "#SciFriday" by @jinnis

** some related hashtags: #greetthehat #shoottheapple #freewilly (although this one got stolen later) #sweartofreedom