Cox, George - Aryan Mythology Vol 2.pdf

THE LEGEND OF TELL. 97
Sarpedon suggests a comparison, has received its deathblow CHAP,
as much from the hands of historians as from those of com-
IL
parative mythologists. But there are probably few legends
which more thoroughly show that from myths which have
worked themselves into the narrative of an historical age
there is absolutely nothing to be learnt in the way of history.
Even if the legend of Tell be given up as a myth, it might
be contended that at the least it indicates some fact, and
this fact must be the oppression of the Swiss by Austrian
tyrants ; and yet this supposed fact, without which the story
loses all point and meaning, has been swept away as effectually
as the incidents which have been supposed to illustrate it.
The political history of the Forest Cantons begins at a time
long preceding the legendary date of Tell and Gesler ; and
the election of Eudolf of Hapsburg as king of the Romans
in 1278 was important to the Swiss only from their previous
connexion with his house. 1 In short, we have proof of the
existence of a confederation of the Three Cantons in 1291,
while the popular account dates its origin from the year 1314,
and ascribes it to the events which are assigned to that time.
Nay, more, ' there exist in contemporary records no instances
of wanton outrage and insolence on the Hapsburg
side. It was the object of that power to obtain political
ascendency, not to indulge its representatives in lust or
wanton insult. That it was so becomes all the more distinct,
since there are plentiful records of disputes in which the
interests of the two were mixed up with those of particular
persons.' In these quarrels, the Edinburgh Reviewer goes
on to say, ' the symptoms of violence, as is natural enough,
appear rather on the side of the Swiss Communities than on
that of the aggrandising imperial house ;
' and the attack on
the abbey of Einsiedeln was treated ' not as a crime of
which the men of Schwitz were guilty, but as an act of war
for which the three Cantons were responsible as a separate
state.' The war of Swiss independence which followed this
event was brought to an issue in the battle of Morgarten ;
1 The evidence of tin's connexion has Confederation Suisse in the Edinburgh
been ably summarised by the writer of Review for January 1869, p. 134 et. seq.
the article on Rilliet's Origines de la
VOL. II. H