Then I tried to trace the history of the ballad that led to the painting, and that was much more difficult. One
blogger refers to a couple of Swedish sources and claims
this (Stolts Hilla (Geijer & Afzelius #32), see also
here is the full version with 31 verses. The blog also lists two different melodies
here and
here. A
Danish version (and
here) (Olrik and Falbe-Hansen, 1899, p. 95 of 176), Hillelilles Sorg counts 33 verses, with the difference being verses 31 and 32. They mention in the comment that the custom and right of a father to sell his daughter as a slave, if she had had a relation not approved by him disappeared in the 12 century with the advent of Christianity. They also say that at the time of the assumed original poet, this custom was just a memory. An alternative is that the song was carried over from an earlier time, like the age of the Vikings, where Scandinavia had connections with the British Isles, which would connect to Hildebrand being an English prince.
The poem begins with an introduction, it is like a frame story with only the middle part being told in first person by Hilde. As the queen survived Hilde, she then could be the source of the story, at least if one allows for the story to be true to itself and internally consistent.
In this
blog, they write that:
The English/Scots Child ballad #7 tells a similar story. This ballad is sometimes called
The Douglas Tragedy, and is located in the Scottish borders. But it is also sometimes known as
Earl Brand, after its male protagonist. The similarity with Hillebrand's name is clear!
In the above quote, I inserted a link to the Douglas Tragedy.
What is interesting about the idea that it should go back to the age of the Vikings is that
Hilde according to the Wiki:
is one of several female given names derived from the name
Hild formed from
Old Norse hildr, meaning "battle".
Hild, a Nordic-German
Bellona,
[1] was a
Valkyrie who conveyed fallen warriors to
Valhalla. Warfare was often called Hild's Game.
[2]
Also in the story Hilde was not allowed to say the name of her kidnapper and lover since he would lose power, so there was some magic involved. However, when Hildebrand had slain all but her youngest brother, she does call on Hildebrand to save him. As a result, the magic evaporates and the youngest brother slays Hildebrand, but he does not forgive his sister who is tied to the saddle of this horse and exposed to a very abusive and hurtful ride back to the family dwelling.
In the introduction to Olrik and Falbe-Hansen, they mention that this poem was contained in the
collection of a noble lady, Karen Brahe, (Possibly the same family as Tycho Brahe, who discovered the nova in Cassiopeia), however Karen was not the writer. Earlier the collection belonged to Margrethe Lange who came from Engelsholm near the Jutlandic town of Vejle. The collection has been
dated to the 1570s or
1583. With these data, I found a
transcript of the older version in an older language with words in Jutlandic dialect. This version has 42 verses, so some of the other later versions must either have a different origin or they have missed something. Interestingly there is an
English translation from Danish by William Morris published in 1891 and this version has 36 verses. One can hear it read out in this
Youtube.
What is different between the versions of 31 and 42 verses is that Hilde after returning is met by her father and mother. Her father puts her into a tower with thorns that hurt her wherever she moves. He wants to kill her, but her milder mother recommends selling her. At the end of the ballade, the queen who had acquired Hilde as a slave or maid, and who has been listening to the tale of suffering, sheds tears too and reveals to Hilde that Hildebrand was her son. After this Hilde dies in the arms and at the feet of the queen and would have been mother-in-law and a queen of England.
The longer version is more emotionally charged and disturbing. One encounters the issue of mixed loyalty between lover and family, the pain of a mother losing her son, as well as the one who loved him, but could not help betraying him, perhaps unintended, because she also loved her brother. It is even more tragic that Hildelil on her death bed confides in his mother not know the relation. The story also mentions that Hilde's father loved her so much that he had 12 knights to guard her. One of them was Hildebrand who did not only guard her, he also approached her. He then led her away along with so much gold that it had to be carried by two horses. One might argue it was a case of theft and bride kidnapping or rather a case of bride kidnapping gone wrong. Bride kidnapping has a long history as being an honourable or acceptable way of marrying and is still practiced in some places especially in Central Asia, see the
Wiki, but earlier also in Ireland. The Wiki mentions:
The inciting incident for the 12th-century
Norman invasion of Ireland was an instance of wife-stealing: in 1167, the
King of Leinster Diarmait Mac Murchada had his lands and kingship revoked by order of the
High King of Ireland,
Ruaidrí Ua Conchobair as punishment for abducting the wife of another king in 1152. This lead Diarmait to seek the assistance of King
Henry II of England in order to reclaim his kingdom.
The abduction of heiresses was an occasional feature in
Ireland until 1800,
[125][126] as illustrated in the film
The Abduction Club.
I watched the beginning of the movie, it is based on real events and begins in 1780, a generation before the Regency Era.
What I learned in this little research was that there probably would not have been a background story that served as inspiration for the picture of "Hellelil and Hildebrand, the meeting on the turret stairs" if not for a few noble ladies in Southern Scandinavia who were fond of books, old stories and ballads including those about love. They had the good fortune of being able to preserve some stories long enough to make them last into our own time. I also learned that there has been a lot of editing of this particular ballad and probably many more. There is even a modern Swedish
song version which is more reduced than the short 31 verse version mentioned earlier. Today we do not rely on ballads, as we have got Regency novels and so much more, still I realize these novels are part of a long tradition, that earlier had other forms, including ballads.
