Note 25 — 116 ADAM BELL, CLIM OF THE CLOUGH, AND WILLIAM OF CLOUDESLY

For the interpretation which has been put upon the Tell story, see, among many, Pfannenschmid, in Germania, X, 1–40; Rochholz, Tell und Gessler, in Sage und Geschichte.

The mildew of myth spreads, of course, from William to his comrades. J. Grimm, in his Gedanken über Mythos, etc., 1813, interprets Clim, Cloudesly, and Clough all in the sense of nail, sharp point, arrow; and as Bell is βέλος, Tell is telum, Toko τόξον, and Egil is igel, hedgehog, and therefore the spine of the hedgehog, and therefore dart, the names are all one as to meaning. But Grimm appears to have been less confident about these etymologies in later days. Sir G. W. Cox, on the other hand, says that Cloudesly’s name marks him as an inhabitant of Cloudland. (Meanwhile, every likelihood favors the derivation of Cloudesly from clúd, rock, and leáh, lea, and the interpretation of Clim as Clem and of Clough as ravine.) Cloudesly and his mates are all the more mythical because they are three, and because, as it is asserted, Robin Hood is mythical, with whom they are, one and all, assumed to be identical.