In 1289 the tension in the Forest Cantons reached a breaking point. Wilhelm Gorkeit, crossbow maker from Bürglen, refuses to obey the bailiff's hat. Out of defiance and a sense of duty arose a conflict that found its height in Altdorf. The shot at the apple, the leap to shore in the storm and the ambush in the Hohle Gasse of Küssnacht turned him into a hunted man and a symbol of a new freedom. Between the loss of his homeland, flight into exile and his first steps in Zürich unfolds the drama of a man who rose from a farmer's son to a figure of legend, and whose arrow set an entire land in motion.