[1]
[1] See Delepierre, Historical Difficulties, p. 75.
The bold heretic was substantially right, however, like so
many other heretics, earlier and later. The Danish account of
Tell is given as follows, by Saxo Grammaticus:--
"A certain Palnatoki, for some time among King Harold's
body-guard, had made his bravery odious to very many of his
fellow-soldiers by the zeal with which he surpassed them in
the discharge of his duty. This man once, when talking tipsily
over his cups, had boasted that he was so skilled an archer
that he could hit the smallest apple placed a long way off on
a wand at the first shot; which talk, caught up at first by
the ears of backbiters, soon came to the hearing of the king.
Now, mark how the wickedness of the king turned the confidence
of the sire to the peril of the son, by commanding that this
dearest pledge of his life should be placed instead of the
wand, with a threat that, unless the author of this promise
could strike off the apple at the first flight of the arrow,
he should pay the penalty of his empty boasting by the loss of
his head. The king's command forced the soldier to perform
more than he had promised, and what he had said, reported, by
the tongues of slanderers, bound him to accomplish what he had
NOT said. Yet did not his sterling courage, though caught in
the snare of slander, suffer him to lay aside his firmness of
heart; nay, he accepted the trial the more readily because it
was hard.
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