Heinrich von Winkelried

Heinrich von Winkelried (d. after 1303), known as Schrutan or Strut "the giant", was a medieval knight in what is now Central Switzerland.

As Strut von Winkelried he became the subject of a legend which makes him the slayer of a dragon. The legendary Strut is placed a generation before the historical character, with a flouruit in the 1240s, and his death due to poisoning by dragon-blood recorded for 1250.

Heinrich von Winkelried, genannt Schrutan is recorded in a document dated 22 April 1275. After this date and until 1303, his name figures repeatedly as that of a witness on official documents. Nothing beyond this is known about his life. The Winkelried family is well attested in 13th and 14th century, the first known member being the knight Rudolf von Winkelried, attested 1248 as a follower of Frederick II. Heinrich therefore may have been a son of Rudolf's. The home castle of the Winkelried may have been at Ennetmoos near Stans. The modern municipality of Ennetmoos has chosen dragon for its coat of arms due to the legend of Schrutan.

The nickname Schrutan (also Strutan, Struthan, Struth, etc.) is derived from German legend, where it is given to a giant, in particular one of the guardians of the Rosengarten in Heldenbuch literature, but it also occurs as the name of a knight at Etzel's court in the Nibelungenlied (v. 1880). Why the historical knight was given this nickname is not known, but it was not uncommon at the time for members of the knightly classes of the Holy Roman Empire to adopt pseudonyms taken from heroic fiction. Heinrich's sons would have been Rudolf and Walther von Winkelried, both d. c. 1325. Hermann von Liebenau further assumes that one Heinrich genannt Schrutan who was buried with is wife Mechthild in Colmar, Alsace must be identical with the knight, who therefore would have left Switzerland at some point after 1303, but Oechsli (1898) does not accept the identity and ascribes the equality in name to coincidence.

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