#Valentine’s Day 2019

Hellelil and Hildebrand, the Meeting on the Turret Stairs (1864)

1. …is a painting in the National Gallery of Ireland
2. …by Irish artist Frederic William Burton (1816-1900).
3. Based on a medieval Danish ballad about the ill-starred love between
4. Hellelil and her bodyguard, Hildebrand,
5. …it features the lovers sharing a fleeting moment of intimacy.
6. Things don’t go well for them.
7. When her father discovers their attachment he orders
8. ..that her seven brothers should kill Hildebrand.
9. But the bodyguard turns out to be a formidable adversary.
10. He has killed  six of the brothers and Hellelil’s father.
11. Hellelil  intervenes to save the life of her surviving sibling.
12. Hildebrand succumbs to his wounds and
13. …she decides she cannot live without him.
14. #Breathtaking