Freischütz

Freischütz ('free-shot'), the name given to a legendary hunter and marksman who gets a number of bullets (Freikugeln) from the devil, six of which always hit the mark, while the seventh is at the absolute disposal of the devil himself, who directs it at his pleasure. A northern variant makes the man a Fowler who sells his soul to the devil for an unerring aim for seven years. Fortunately there is one condition—that the enemy should always be able to name the game being shot, and the Fowler's wife, seeing in this a way of escape for her unhappy husband, strips, tars, and feathers herself, and so outwits the devil to her husband's salvation. The story was first treated by Apel in the first part of his Gespensterbuch (1810), and was adapted by F. Kind for the opera, Der Freischütz (Fr. Roland des Bois), which the genius of Weber has given to the world. See Grässe, Die Quelle des Freischütz (Dresden, 1875).