Shooting an apple off one's child's head of the story is in the legend of William Tell, supposedly happening to start off the Swiss revolution, written first in the 15th-century "White Book of Sarnen", then in Aegidius Tschudi's 16th-century "Chronicon Helveticum", and later the basis for Friedrich Schiller's 1804 play. Tell is arrested for failing to bow in respect to the hat that the newly appointed Austrian "Vogt", Albrecht Gessler, has placed on a pole, and Gessler commands him to shoot an apple off his son's head with a single bolt from his crossbow. After splitting the apple with the single shot (supposedly on November 18, 1307),
A Supplement to the Journey to the West which dates the writing of the novel to 1640. The "Supplement"'s episode of the torture of Qin Hui in hell has many elements that appeared in earlier fictional literature. The idea of someone serving as an adjunct king of hell was first mentioned in a collection of oral traditions called "Popular tales of the Record of the Three Kingdoms" (三国志评话), the literary ancestor of the "Romance of the Three Kingdoms." This was one of five such compilations printed in the "Newly Published, Fully Illustrated Pinghua" (新刊全相评话) series during the reign of Yuan Emperor Yingzhong (1321-1323). It was later popularized in