What is "tellenlied"

The Bundeslied ("Song of the Confederacy") or Tellenlied ("Song of Tell") is a patriotic song of the Old Swiss Confederacy. Its original composition dates to the Burgundian Wars period (1470s). The oldest extant manuscript text was written in 1501, the first publication in print dates to 1545. It consists of stanzas of six lines each, with a rhyming scheme of A-A-B-C-C-B. It is one of the oldest existing records of the legend of Swiss national hero William Tell.

It is also known as Altes Tellenlied "Old Song of Tell", in order to distinguish it from later compositions known as Tellenlied, such as that by Hieronymus Muheim (1613) or that by Johann Caspar Lavater (1767), and as Lied von der Entstehung der Eidgenossenschaft "Song of the Origin of the Confederacy".