A Welsh Version of the William Tell Legend

Abstract

THE story of William Tell's skill in shooting at the apple placed on the head of his little son by order of Gessler, the tyrannical Austrian bailiff of Uri is closely bound up with the legendary history of the Swiss confederation and is of course well-known. Far less familiar, even among Welsh people, is a similar story found in a Welsh manuscript (Peniarth 13i), now at the National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth. According to this Madog, son of Gruffydd Maelor (+ i191), a Welsh chieftain who had been dispossessed of his lands in Breconshire by William de Breos, son of William de Braioze and nephew of Earl Roger of Hereford, was ordered by Matilda (Maud) de St Valery, Countess of Breconshire and wife of William de Breos to shoot an apple from the head of his youngest son (he had five), also called Madog, a feat which he successfully accomplished. William Tell is a historical figure for he appears in a rising planned for 8 November, 1307, to expel the oppressors. Maud de St Valery (in the Welsh manuscript Maud Walbri) belongs to the twelfth century and is a notable figure around whom, as Moll Walbee, numerous legends grew, many no doubt of early date. William de Breos having seized the cantref of Elfael (East Breconshire) built two castles, one in the valley of the Colwyn for the commote of Upper Elfael, the other called by the Welsh Castell Paen or Payne's Castle in the valley of the Machawy for the commote of Lower Elfael (commotes still known as the hundreds of Colwyn and Painscastle). The latter was known to the English as Castrum Matildis or Castle Maud, no doubt because it had been stoutly defended against a Welsh attack in 1195 by Maud de St Valery, the Amazonian wife (as Sir J. E. Lloyd calls her) of its builder and lord a feat which would not endear her to the Welsh. (Lloyd, History of Wales, II, p. 585.)