Talk:Freischütz

Opening heading
The title of the entry needs the umlaut. The word is "Freischütz", of course. I don't know how to make that change. Abuelo jack (talk) 23:44, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Requested move 2011

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: page moved. Vegaswikian (talk) 06:14, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

Freischutz → Freischütz – For whatever reason, the article was originally created without the umlaut - it should be named "Freischütz". I would have moved it already, but there is currently a redirect at "Freischütz", pointing to Der Freischütz, the opera by Carl Maria von Weber. The legend of "Freischütz" served as the inspiration for the opera, therefore that namespace should not be a redirect for the opera itself, but should house this article.--... there's more than what can be linked. 18:04, 29 September 2011 (UTC)
 * rename to Freischütz (folklore) instead. Opera is the primary topic . Agathoclea (talk) 06:32, 30 September 2011 (UTC) Opera has a "der" in title But the opera will need to be hatnoted. Agathoclea (talk) 06:36, 30 September 2011 (UTC)
 * The remaining incoming link is to the third meaning of the term. Agathoclea (talk) 06:46, 30 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Support, especially since "schutz" in German, without the umlaut, means "protection" rather than "shooter". HandsomeFella (talk) 07:22, 30 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Support. Just undoing a mistake, really. N oetica Tea? 07:38, 30 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Support per consistency and actual correctness. - Darwinek (talk) 12:51, 30 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Support as above. Deor (talk) 16:56, 1 October 2011 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

English title
Perhaps it would be better to move the article to an English title, like Warlock Marksman or sth, because such tales are also known from Slavic mythology. --Eleassar my talk 21:21, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Requested move 2013

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the proposal was no consensus. No one seems to be especially keen on the proposed title, nominator included, so I'm closing this discussion to open the possibility of a new one. --BDD (talk) 18:45, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

Freischütz → Warlock Marksman – Used by reliable English sources and not specific to German mythology, therefore per WP:ENGLISH the article should have an English title. Should it perhaps be at 'Warlock marksman' (second word uncapitalised)? Eleassar my talk 09:25, 28 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Comment - not supporting the proposed title as it only has 1 (not 2) hits in old translation of the Slovenian version, however Google Books shows that "Freischütz" without "Der" should redirect to Der Freischütz, and this would be better off with Freischütz (legend) or magical marksman legend. In ictu oculi (talk) 10:14, 28 August 2013 (UTC)
 * User:Eleassar, what is the date of the Slovenian version? Is it after 1811? In ictu oculi (talk) 10:43, 28 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Fran Kocbek lived from 1863 to 1930 and Jakob Kelemina from 1882 to 1957. The original folk tale is of unknown period. Some information is available at What do  you mean with "it only has 1 (not 2) hits in old translation of the Slovenian version"? An additional source is  or . Magic al marksman legend or simply magic marksman would be ok too. --Eleassar my talk 10:53, 28 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes 2 refs sorry. Then the Slovenian tale is only documented from 1890 at earliest, that is 80 years after Apel. Right at the moment may main concern is not the name of this article but the lack of any real source for a written version prior to 1811. In ictu oculi (talk) 12:00, 28 August 2013 (UTC)
 * This is a different issue that should be dealt with in a new section. According to, the story originates from Solčava. Another source is or  (in Slovene - this and another story about a hunter from Logar Valley). --Eleassar my talk 12:24, 28 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Here is the full text of the second ref.(, pg. 424) --Eleassar my talk 12:46, 28 August 2013 (UTC)


 * Comment - also not supporting the proposed title. Are both of these hits (cited in the proposal) authored by Fanny Copeland? If so, "warlock marksman" is extremely idiosyncratic, with only two hits for the generic phrase "a warlock marksman". The phrase "a Freischütz" returns better results, some of which seem not to be explicitly connected to German. The suggestion "magic marksman" seems more promising based on the hits for generic usage. Doremo (talk) 13:50, 28 August 2013 (UTC)


 * Speedy procedural close User:Eleassar said "this was not a requested move, but a simple question" in an edit summary (05:40, 29 August 2013). Therefore this should not be part of the Requested Move process, better options are WP:RFC, etc. -- 76.65.128.222 (talk) 06:35, 29 August 2013 (UTC)
 * This is a RM not a simple question, but it may be speedy closed so that I can then start a new RM proposing the move to 'magic marksman'. --Eleassar my talk 07:15, 29 August 2013 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure we're ready for magic marksman RM and I personally am not 100% sure would support that.. perhaps. I'd feel more secure if there was better source material to show any trace of the tale prior to Johann August Apel. This is fundamentally an article about a German folk tale adapted later into Slovenian. In ictu oculi (talk) 02:31, 31 August 2013 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Saints of Killers?
Why is there a "See Also" pointing to a character from the comic book Preacher with absolutely no context and no explanation given in the information embedded in the link? Will remove if there is no reason written out, or none given.Muddbrixx (talk) 19:41, 10 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Agreed. I decided to be bold and just removed it. I simply can't see the relation between the two. Don Durandal (talk) 10:48, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

Hoffmann
What is the original title of "The Affianced Spectre"? I've never heard of any such story by Hoffmann. In particular the mentioned year 1847 doesn't make sense - at that time Hoffmann was dead for 25 years. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 178.12.1.13 (talk) 19:41, 13 March 2019 (UTC)


 * The ref given seems to be a reprint of this book review in The Athenaeum of Contes Nocturnes de Hoffmann (1846) translated by Jean-Baptiste Pitois (as P. Christian). Contes Nocturnes could ostensibly be a translation of Hoffmann's Nachtstücke (though I haven't checked whether any of the other stories there correspond to Hoffmann stories or not), and "The Affianced Spectre" mentioned in the Athenaeum review is "Le Spectre Fiancé". The first part seems like a translation of Apel's "Der Freischütz", but again I haven't read the whole thing through, to see if it differs from Apel's "Der Freischütz" in the way the book review describes, and if so whether this part is taken from another known story, or invented by Pitois. It's possible that Hoffmann copied Apel's story and added his own ending, but I can't find any evidence for that. Searching Google Books for  does show some French sources that seem to have uncritically assumed Pitois' translation was genuine, but none seem to mention the Hoffmann story it was apparently taken from. What makes it a bit more confusing is that there is an early French translation of a genuine Hoffmann story ("Das unheimliche Gast") also given the title "Le Spectre Fiancé". For now though, since the only sources are the Pitois translation, and its book review, I don't think these are reliable enough to claim that Hoffmann wrote this, so I'll remove it until we can find any sources that explain whether Pitois was right to attribute it to Hoffmann or not. -- Yodin T 19:55, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

I've found a reference that links the story to Apel, so have restored it as "Pitois' Spectre Fiancé". I've also added another section for the only genuine Hoffmann Freischütz reference I can find: The Devil's Elixirs. -- Yodin T 00:25, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

Going to remove "freeshooter"
Unless there is a really intelligent objection, I am going to delete the gibberish in round brackets and quotation marks after the title. The first sentence explains what "Freischütz" means; the insertion of a nonexistent English compound formed of cognates of the German word parts adds no information. Less than no information, in the unfortunate case that the reader isn't aware that it's not a word. The fact that someone came up with a source for it to put in a footnote doesn't make it more meaningful -- it just indicates that the urge to toss cognates about is not limited to WP.Wegesrand (talk) 19:17, 14 June 2020 (UTC)