Eat A Red Apple Day - The Legend of William Tell

Oh there are so many ways I could go with the apple theme of Eat a Red Apple Day, a unofficial holiday for the fruit happening every December 1st in America. I mean there is: the Apple of Knowledge; Eris's (Greek god of spite) golden apple that began the Trojan War; the Greek hero, Hercules's, eleventh task; Issac Newton's Law of Gravity; Idun, the Norse keeper of apples; Avalon itself which means "Isle of Apples"; The American Legend of Johnny Appleseed; eating apples keeps doctors at bay (the reason behind today's "holiday"); and the English Apple Tree Man...to name a few.

But I chose to talk about the Folk Hero from Switzerland, William Tell, and his legendary shot instead.

So, as the folklore goes, there was this bad guy (there is always a bad guy and they always seem to have wealth and power. Makes you wonder why we still allow bad guys but...I digress) who ruled over the land named Gessler. Gessler was a proud tyrant and put a cap atop of a pole in the middle of the square and told all that they must bow down to it as if it were himself.

One bad ass dude, William Tell, refused and this made Gessler very, very angry. Gessler could have just killed Tell right there and then but he decided to play a little game. (We've seen the like in Bond movies. Don't they know that never works out)? He told Tell that if he could shoot an apple off his son's head, they both would live, but if he missed, he'd have his bootlickers kill the boy.

Well, William, being a fantastic archer, made the shot no problem and down the road he ended up killing Gessler.

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Saint Nicholas Feast Day

One of the best known Christian saints around the world is Nicholas of the Ancient Greek (now part of Turkey) coastal city, Myra, as he is tied into the Santa Claus mythology. December 6th is set for his Feast Day as that is when he was believed to be the day he died though in the Orthodox religion it is on the 19th. Lots about the real saint have been lost but 200 years after his death, he had a strong band of followers...actually known as the cult of St. Nicholas. The cult entwined Christianity aspects with Greek mythology (why Krampus is at home being St. Nick's wing man). So, though there is very little left to tell us about the real Nicholas, he lived in a time and place where Christianity was constantly being attacked and documentation was done on parchment which wasn't always stored right, there are two stories about Nick that solidified his status as a child protecting generous giver: The first shows his altruistic side. A poor man with 3 daughters was very...

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Pith of the Myth

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