Hilda

General
**Gallery**

 This section contains spoilers of an episode, movie, or book.

* Series S1 - 2
* Series S3
* Graphic novels

## Appearance

### Outfit

Casual Outfit: Red sweater, yellow scarf, black beret, blue skirt, black leggings, large red boots.Sparrow Scouts Uniform: Yellow shirt, brown skirt, red neckerchief, black leggings, brown hat w/ red feather, large red boots.

## Professional Status

### Occupation(s)

Adventurer
Student

## Personal Status

### Relative(s)

Johanna (biological mother)
Anders (biological father)
Astrid (maternal great aunt)
Phinium (maternal grandfather)
Lydia (maternal grandmother)
Unnamed Great Grandfather
Trylla (foster mother)
Baba (adoptive sister)

### Friend(s)

Twig
Alfur
Jorgen
Frida
David
Wood Man
The Great Raven
Tontu (alpha)
Kaisa
Matilda Pilqvist
Victoria Van Gale
Louise

### Enemy(s)

Victoria Van Gale (formerly)
Erik Ahlberg(formerly)
Abigail (formerly)
Two-Headed Troll
Trundle
Trundle's brother (formerly)
Halvor (formerly)
Eugene (formerly)
Spider Frog (formerly)
The Fairy Entity

## Media

### First Appearance

**Graphic novels**
Hildafolk
**Animated series**
"Chapter 1: The Hidden People"

### Voice Actor

Bella Ramsey (English)

**Hilda** is the titular protagonist of the award-winning British graphic novel series, the British-Canadian Netflix-exclusive television series, and the novelization of the animated series. She, along with her pet deer-fox, Twig, her mother, Johanna, and her friends from the city of Trolberg as well as a little elf named **Alfur** and its surroundings, embarks in a multitude of supernatural adventures, encountering a diverse cast of magical creatures inspired by Scandinavian folklore.

## Appearance

* Human
* Troll

Hilda is an 11-year-old (seasons 1 - movie) / 13-year old (season 3) girl whose hair comes in a teal blue color, making her stand out from everyone else. Her typical outfit, which she wears both indoors and outdoors, consists of a black beret, a yellow scarf, a red sweater with yellow cuffs, a blue skirt, which is the same shade of blue as her hair, black tights and red rain boots. She has a Caucasian complexion, like her mother. She also often has a brown, sling knapsack, in which she carries various items, including her sketch book and a pencil.

When she was younger, Hilda's appearance was largely different. She retained her black beret and tights, but wore an oversized brown sweater with a red straight line and yellow zigzag pattern which her mother knitted for her, a red scarf, yellow backpack, and gray rain boots. Her hair was shorter and tied into two pigtails.

During Season 2, although it's barely noticeable, she is slightly taller than the previous season.

In the epilogue of the movie, she is notably taller than she was in the past two seasons, due to the scene being set at least a year after the events of the movie. While typically, she still looks all the same and dresses in the same clothes, her skirt is no longer a part of the outfit. Hilda remains this way throughout the third and final season, though she is now more noticeably shorter in height compared to her friends Frida and David.

When she was turned into a troll Hilda still retained cyanic hair (albeit slightly more gray in tone), but she had uneven teeth and her skin became pale white in color and stone-like with small lines across her body along with an elongated nose most common for trolls. Unlike her human form and her troll form in the graphic novels, Hilda was transformed into a three-toed troll in the movie similar to Trundle instead of having four. When in shadow, her eyes would glow with a signature red shine. As a troll, Hilda had no clothing due to it being swapped with Baba by the changeling spell. As a troll rock after being petrified by the sunlight, her body and limbs were merged together into a typical rock formation with the long nose but the top of her head retained the general shape of her hairstyle. In the graphic novel, the cracks on Hilda as a troll rock are deeper and more pronounced than in the movie. In addition, the front half of her rock form is more “L” shaped in the movie as opposed to the graphic novel where she became more of a round shaped rock.

Hilda as a troll, animated series.Hilda as a troll, graphic novels.Hilda as a troll rock, animated seriesHilda as a troll rock, graphic novels.
## Personality

In all incarnations of the franchise, Hilda is an extremely adventurous and fearless girl. She loves to draw in her sketchbook and is very kind to nature. She is shown not to get scared easily by monsters and can outrun and outsmart them.

Hilda is sometimes rude but is usually very friendly and generous. Her rude side is played up more in the graphic novels, where she is known to frequently argue with her mother or to easily get annoyed when things don't go her way. She is also more prone to mischief in the graphic novels (like taking her role of pretending to be injured for first aid practice of the Sparrow Scouts too far, or going on secret adventures without her mother knowing). When the graphic novels were adapted for the animated series, these negative traits were toned down in season 1 to make Hilda a nicer girl. Season 2 partly restores her characterization from the graphic novels, with Hilda getting into some arguments with Johanna there.

In "Chapter 6: The Nightmare Spirit", it is revealed that there is one thing that frightens her; riding a bike, something she never had learned. This was used against her by David's Marra. In the graphic novels, this fear is never brought up, but in the novelization it is turned into a subplot for "Hilda and the Nowhere Space"; early in the book, Hilda comes up with various excuses for not having to use her bike (including that she doesn't want it to get dirty). Then she encounters the Marra who just like in the animated series, uses this fear against her for a nightmare. After this encounter, she tries her best to overcome her fear and slowly succeeds. By the end of the book, she has mastered to ride a bike, and is thrilled by the thought of all the places she can go to now. As of "Chapter 6: The Old Bells of Trolberg", Hilda can ride a bike just fine, and even remarks that she is getting better at it.

Hilda hates having to disappoint people, especially her friends or her mother and always tries her best to help and support others with their needs, occasionally taking risks in order to fulfill one's request. She is very brave and caring, as described in the official Netflix description. She is usually very happy and generous.

## Relationships

Hilda lives with her mother, Johanna. While the two of them can argue from time to time (though notably more so in the graphic novels than the animated series), they love each other deeply. Season 2 sees a temporary dip in their relationship when Hilda begins to lie to Johanna about her adventures and is grounded by her twice, but in season 3 they are on good terms again.

Hilda has a pet deerfox named Twig, whom she loves very much. The two have been together for at least a few years.

While still living in the wilderness, Hilda befriended the elf, Alfur. Thanks to him, she could sign the proper paperwork to finally see the Elves. In the animated series and novelization, Alfur went with Hilda when she moved to Trolberg so he could report on city life, and continued to be of great help to her there. In the graphic novels, he stayed behind in the wilderness.

Once in Trolberg, Hilda became friends with both David and Frida. Her friendship with the two is notably further fleshed out in the animated series and novelization than in the original graphic novels, where they were only minor characters. Just like Frida, she looks out for David and tries to help him overcome his fears. In Season 2, she even becomes Frida's familiar when Frida begins to learn magic.

She holds Erik Ahlberg in an extremely low regard for being an absolute glory hound, whose attempts to become as famous as his distant ancestor, Edmund Ahlberg, often endangered her, her friends, other humans and various creatures (although after the events of Hilda and the Mountain King, that may've changed, as she was able to let him see reason and prevent the Safety Patrol from making a deadly mistake (i.e. provoke Amma into standing up and destroying Trolberg)).

Hilda loves her father, Anders, but he is absent for most of her live, with him only vistiting sporadically. When he finally shows up in "Chapter 5: The Job" and makes it clear he intends to stay for a while, Hilda is overjoyed and tries to help him make good on his promise, including getting him a job with The Polecat.

She is also close to her great-aunt Astrid.

## Biography

* Animated Series
* Graphic novels
* Novelization

#### Pre-series

From when she was born up until the start of the series, Hilda lived with just her mother in a house in the wilderness. Her father Anders would only occasionally drop by for a visit, and her great-aunt Astrid sometimes came over, but for most part it was just Hilda and Johanna.

Growing up there made her quite adventurous. A few years prior to the series, she met Twig, who had been trapped under some rocks after a landslide, and freed him. Twig later returned the favor by protecting Hilda from an eagle, but in doing so got him separated from his herd. He has been living with her since.

#### Season 1

Hilda's peaceful life ended, however, when the Elves decided to have the two humans evicted from the valley. Thankfully, one elf, Alfur came to her aid and helped Hilda meet both the Elf Prime Minister and Elf King to try and settle the conflict. At the same time, Hilda met the giant, Jorgen, who was looking for his missing friend. Hilda eventually managed to get the two together again when it turned out the mountain next to her house was the giant Jorgen was waiting for. Sadly, Jorgen accidentally destroyed Hilda's house, just when she managed to arrange a truce with the king, forcing her and her mom to move to Trolberg.

In Trolberg, Hilda and Johanna moved into a new house. After an adventure in which she met The Great Raven, Hilda joined the Sparrow Scouts and made her first human friends; David and Frida. During their first badge challenge, for which they had to clean up and improve a section of Trolberg Park, the three friends accidentally dug up some sleeping Vittra, mistaking them for weeds, and had to rescue them from getting ground to mulch.

Living in Trolberg also meant Hilda had to go to school for the first time. She had at first quite some trouble adapting, which lead to friction between her and her teacher, Mrs. Hallgrim, who considered her to be disruptive. Incidents included; Hilda asking a question without raising her hand and at the wrong time (namely a history related question during science class), refusing to participate in a troll drill since the procedure (duck under a desk, similar to an earthquake drill) wouldn't help during an actual troll attack, and making a philosophical question that addresses a math problem involving apples after school was already over and her classmates had left. During Parent's Night at The Ahlberg School, however, Hilda proved her true value when she helped save the school from an angry Troll by returning the Troll's baby (that David had accidentally brought with him as part of his rock collection). After this, Mrs. Hallgrim warmed up to her.

When David became the victim of a Marra that kept giving him nightmares, Hilda helped him out by trading places with him and making a deal with the Marra that she would leave David alone if she could endure the nightmares the Marra came up with. While Hilda proved difficult to scare, the Marra eventually found something to use against her; her inability to ride a bike. David, not wanting Hilda to make this sacrifice for him, and offered to take the Marra back. This fortunately caused the Marra to lose interest in them both. After this, Hilda asked her friends to help her learn to ride a bike.

In "Chapter 7: The Lost Clan", Hilda, Frida, and David discovered the long lost Bragga Family of Elves living in Trolberg City Park when Hilda suggested they should try to find a rare Blue Nettle for their botany badge. David was taken hostage by them, forcing Hilda and Frida to ask Alfur for help (With Frida first signing the paperwork so she could see Elves). Alfur told the two girls about the ancient conflict that lead to the Bragga being banished from the northern counties and tried to end their exile with a new contract, only to learn the Bragga had sworn off all forms of paperwork. Instead, they demanded that Alfur would settle the old conflict by combat. Hilda agreed to this and even offered to help Alfur fight, but Frida interfered and suggested to find a solution that could benefit everybody. At her request, Alfur, Hilda, and Frida sought out a Lindworm and had her destroy the contract; the only way to render any Elf contract void. Thus, the exile of the Bragga was ended.

In "Chapter 8: The Tide Mice", she successfully auditions for the Warblers, and becomes a singer in the choir. She also discovered a hidden section in the Library, where she found a spellbook with a ritual for summoning Tide Mice. She used this to give David (who likewise wanted to join the Warblers, but kept failing his auditions) and Johanna (who had to take a job at the hardware store due to lack of any assignments) some luck. It worked, but she failed to properly read the entire section and thus didn't realize the Tide Mice would eventually give David and Johanna's souls to her. Thanks to Frida and Alfur, she discovered her mistake and was able to reverse it with a counter-ritual, which she had to perform during a concert of the Warblers.

In "Chapter 9: The Ghost", she became Frida's campaign manager when Frida tried to run for class president. That same episode, she and David discovered Frida's secret; she is not as perfect and neat as she appears. Her bedroom was always tidy because a ghost, Craigie Williams, cleaned it for her. When he stopped doing so since his, and Frida's favourite book went missing, Frida's room quickly became a pig pen. This shattered Frida's confidence. Determined to help her friend, Hilda (with the unwilling help of David) tracked down Craigie Williams, who suspected his sister Engilbjort had taken the book. The three kids fought her for it but lost. Hilda was able to make Engilbjort surrender the book by preventing her from going back into her grave at sunrise, only to discover the book she had taken was not the one they had been looking for. This made Hilda feel like she failed Frida as a friend. She tried again to lift Frida's spirits, but the girl angrily lashed out at her and David. This was too much, even for Hilda, and she left embittered, her friendship with Frida severely strained.

In "Chapter 10: The Storm", a severe snow storm struck Trolberg. During the storm, the weather broadcast by Hilda's favourite meteorologist Victoria Van Gale was interrupted, causing Hilda to think her hero was in trouble. Along with David and the Great Raven, she visited Victoria at the Trolberg Weather Station. There, she learned Victoria had managed to make a weather machine and had accidentally lured dozens of Weather Spirits to Trolberg, which were causing the storm with their arguments. Hilda convinced Victoria to try and use her machine to blow the storm away from Trolberg and Victoria agreed, but it failed and her machines overheated. Out of other options, Hilda and the Raven confronted the arguing Weather Spirits, with Hilda offering to moderate their debate. She succeeded in getting them to calm down, thus saving the city from getting completely covered in snow. Back at the Weather Station, David informed her of the truth; Victoria had captured a baby Weather Spirit. This shattered Hilda's image of her idol, and she proclaimed Victoria to be a mad scientist.

When the baby's father attacked the weather station, Hilda freed the baby. As the father and child reunited, the entire building was destroyed, but Hilda was fortunately saved because the adult Weather Spirit carried her outside. She fell off her however and ended up in the woods far away from Trolberg. Here she met the Wood Man again, who was playing cards with four Elves and a Forest Giant and asked for his help to return to Trolberg. She also had an elf named Barch send her mother a message by email to tell her she was fine. The Wood Man first deliberately lost Hilda to the giant so she could help him reclaim some of his stuff from the Giant's tree. After escaping the giant, the two of them ended up in a magical house that tried to keep them, prisoners, while simultaneously giving them everything they wanted. Alfur, Twig, and the Great Raven also ended up here and got trapped as well, until Hilda figured out how to overload the house by asking for too many things at once. The house then created a doorway back to Hilda's house in Trolberg, allowing the five friends to escape.

As the end of the year approached, Hilda got quite nervous about the fact that she had not earned any Sparrow Scouts badges, and was afraid to tell this to her mom. Around the same time, she and David tried to reconcile with Frida, who had made a new friend named Kelly, and Hilda met a homeless Nisse named Tontu, whom she tried to help find a new house. She first invited him to come and live in her home, but this led to a violent fight between Tontu and another Nisse who already lived in Hilda's house. The fight resulted in Johanna banishing Tontu.

During the end-of-year camp of the Sparrow Scouts, David, and Hilda met Tontu again in the Huldrawood. When they tried to bring him some snacks that night, they came across the Marra and discovered Frida was now with them (since Kelly was also a Marra). When The Black Hound] that had been stalking Trolberg for some time now also showed up, and Kelly tried to use Frida as bait for the beast so she herself could escape, Hilda rescued Frida. This finally restored their friendship. Frida even promised to help find Tontu and to help Hilda get at least one badge before the ceremony. This, unfortunately, failed again since Hilda got distracted while looking for Tontu, with the only silver lining that she eventually found him.

During the badge ceremony, the Black Hound showed up again, as it turned out it knew how to use Nowhere Space, the place where Nisse usually live. Hilda only escaped thanks to Tontu. The Hound chased the two throughout Nowhere Space, back to Hilda's house. There, the other Nisse came to their aid and discovered the Hound was none other than his old pet Jellybean. Realizing that the hound was not evil, just lost and scared, Hilda convinced her mom to help lure him out of the city before the Trolberg Safety Patrol could capture him. The plan almost failed when Jellybean jumped onto Johanna's car, causing it to go out of control, but the two Nisse saved everybody by briefly transporting the car into the Nowhere Space of the outside world.

At the end of Season 1, Johanna gave Hilda a homemade badge to make up for her not having any proper ones and apologized for pushing her so hard to earn badges. Tontu came to live with Hilda in her home.

#### Season 2

In the first episode of the season, Hilda wins an essay contest from the Trolberg Safety Patrol, and as first prize she is allowed to go on patrol with Erik Ahlberg and Gerda Gustav. During the day, however, she learns that Ahlberg is quite egocentric and is only out to get glory, to the point that he deliberately angers Trolls into attacking so he can stop them. This puts her at odds with Ahlberg for the remainder of the season.

In "Chapter 2: The Draugen", she asks the Rat King for any secrets she can use to discredit Ahlberg, but the Rat King can't find any. The same episode, she and the Wood Man end up seeking out a Draugen ship, and when the Draugen follow her to land, Hilda unites them with their relatives at the cemetery.

In "Chapter 3: The Witch", Hilda and Frida discover the legendary Witches Tower, and help the Librarian, who turns out to be a witch named Kaisa, navigate the dreaded labyrinth of Matilda Pilqvist to get the book The Skeleton Whisperer back. They also fight the Void of No Return together. When Matilda makes Frida her new student, Hilda becomes Frida's witch familiar. Hilda herself is deemed unsuitable to be a witch since she doesn't have the dedication and patience it takes to properly study magic.

In "Chapter 4: The Eternal Warriors", she, Frida, and David go on Sparrow Scouts camp in the Forest of Nott, where they meet two rivalling Viking Clans and the creature Sigurd.

In "Chapter 5: The Windmill", Hilda and friends meet Victoria van Gale again when they discover she took up residence in the windmill on the edge of Trolberg. Like David, Hilda mistrusts her at first, but quickly warms up to her ex-idol when Victoria claims to have changed, and gives her the benefit of the doubt. They help her patch up the windmill, and in return she gives them each a gift. In Hilda's case, two small, caterpillar like animals she has grown fond off. Hilda eventually learns from David, who found some secret documents in the mill, that Victoria plans to tear open a breach to Nowhere Space. The two friends arrive just in time to rescue Frida (who had been captured by Victoria) and stop the machine. The adventure ends with Victoria being send to Fairy Country, despite Hilda's attempts to save her.

In "Chapter 6: The Old Bells of Trolberg", Hilda once again gets in conflict with Erik Ahlberg when Erik initiates his plan to install mechanical bellringers in all the belltowers around Trolberg, and have them ring 24/7. Hilda, who knows how much this will disturb the local creatures (like the Woff and the Bragga Family), initiates a plan to sabotage the bellringers on the day of the ceremony. The plan eventually succeeds thanks to unexpected help from the Keeper of the Bell.

In "Chapter 7: The Beast of Cauldron Island", Hilda and friends investigate the disappearance of several ships around Cauldron Island, for which the local sailors blame the Lindworm. To do so, Hilda lies to Johanna that she is going to a Sparrow Scouts meeting. While Frida and Hilda, with help of a water spirit investigate the matter, they find a ship-graveyard on the bottom of the fjord. They discover the real culprit is a Kraken, who feeds the wood of these ships to her children. At Hilda's advice, Frida uses her magic to inform the Kraken about the ship graveyard, and that her children can feed on that. It works, and the Kraken retreats. For Hilda, the episode ends on a sour note when Johanna reveals that she discovered the lie, and grounds Hilda for the first time in her life.

In "Chapter 8: The Fifty Year Night", Hilda discovers her downstairs neighbor, Peter Ostenfeld, has been using copies of an enchanted edition of Trolberg Digest to revisit a night he spent with Matilda Pilqvist 50 years ago. She gets her hands on a copy of the magazine and follows him into the past. After learning about Peter's story, Hilda decides to use the magazine to fix Peters mistake that he never pursuit a relationship with Tildy, and get him and Tildy together. Her plan works, resulting in an alternate timeline in which Peter and Tildy are happily married, but it also alerts a Time Worm that begins to devour the old versions of Peter, Hilda and Tildy, since they should no longer exist in this new timeline. Tildy is able to hold the time worm at bay long enough to inform Hilda that she has come to regret her actions, and that the past is best left unaltered. The alternate Tildy and Peeter agree and destroy the original magazine, thus breaking the spell and undoing all the changes caused by the time travel. When Tildy brings Hilda home, she finally meets Peter again in the present day.

In "Chapter 9: The Deerfox", Twig runs away from home after feeling neglected by Hilda. As Hilda and Johanna follow him, they remember how Hilda and Twig first met. In the wilderness, the two are attacked by a Red wolf, but with Twig's help Hilda is able to dispose of him. They then find a whole Deer-Fox Herd, including Twig's parents. Hilda, feeling that Twig wants to be with his kind, reluctantly says goodbye and lets him go. Twig, however, was encouraged by his parents to stay with Hilda, and returns to her.

In "Chapter 10: The Yule Lads", Hilda celebrates her first Trolberg Winter Festival. She, Frida, and David sell broth for the Sparrow Scouts, and Hilda hopes to use her tips to buy her mom a snowglobe as a gift. On the first day, they meet the Yule Lads, and Hilda quickly befriends their leader Kertasnikir. When they find out the Yule Lads abduct naughty people to feed them to Gryla, Hilda and friends convince them to give Gryla the broth instead. Gryla accepts the offer, and the Yule Lads release all the people they caught. At the end of the episode, David buys Hilda the snow-globe so Hilda can give Johanna her gift.

In *Chapter 11: The Jorts Incident*, the Tide Mice cause trouble again when Hilda accidentally takes them with her in her backpack, and they attach themselves to Gil Jones, a delivery man of Jorts. Once they settle in Jorts HQ, they rapidly multiply. Frida, Hilda, David, and Kaisa manage to capture them all, after which Frida joins forces with Kaisa, Tildy and the Committee of Tree to perform a new disenchantment spell to banish them for good. Hilda is punished by The Committee of Three to have mouse whiskers for the rest of the day because of her part in the chaos.

In "Chapter 12: The Replacement", Hilda has to help Alfur when a new elf, Alvin, comes to replace him as Trolberg Correspondent, because the Elf Prime Minister and his cabinet believe Alfur's reports about his adventures in Trolberg to be false. When Alfur and Hilda protest, and offer to have Hilda fill out an eyewitness confirmation form to verify Alfur's reports are correct, Alvin denies them this, stating that Hilda is not a reliable eye witness, and that any additional paperwork concerning Alfur's case is put on hold. That afternoon, the Delegation for the Return of Wayward Elves comes to the Trolberg harbor to escort Alfur home. Alfur and Hilda ask the Bragga Family for help, and Agnes volunteers to disguise herself as Alfur. Unfortunately, she can't keep up the appearances for long before her temper gets the best of her, and Alfur is forced to reveal himself. When Alfur tries to escape from the Delegation, the chase leads them to the Farmers Market. There, the Elves are mistaken by the locals, who can't see them, for spirits, and eventually captured by Gerda Gustav when they enter a lighthouse decoration. Alvin and Alfur are the only elves not captured since they jumped out of the lighthouse in time. Hilda takes them to the HQ of the Trolberg Safety Patrol, where they manage to rescue the Elves. This impresses Alvin enough that he himself fills out the eyewitness confirmation form to clear Alfur's name, so Alfur can stay in Trolberg.

In "Chapter 13: The Stone Forest", an argument between Hilda and Johanna (Hilda wants to go back to Frida's house after dinner, while Johanna wants a night for just the two of them) results in Hilda getting sent to her room. Disgruntled, Hilda tries to blackmail Tontu into letting her into Nowhere Space and take her to Frida that way, but Johanna catches her in the act. In the struggle that follows, mother and daughter are send to the Stone Forest. Here, they have to work together to escape the various trolls and other dangers, the most prominent one being a Two-Headed Troll, but get unexpected help from Trylla and her child Baba. With their help, and that of Alfur, Frida and David, they are able to escape and return to Trolberg, where Hilda decides she had enough adventures for now.

The troll, however, has seen how Johanna cared for Hilda, and uses a changeling spell to make her daughter and Hilda swap places. Hilda thus becomes a troll, back in the stone forest.

#### Movie

In "Hilda and the Mountain King", which picks up where Season 2 left off, Hilda starts the story as a troll living with Trylla. While she enjoyes her new freedom and the powers that came with being a troll, she longs back for her old life. A troll named Trundle promises to help her if she can find a way to release him from the cave he had been trapped in, and to retrieve a red orb for him from the ruins of the castle of the Mountain King. Hilda does as asked. When both Hilda and the now human Baba are reunited with their real mothers, the spell is broken and they become their old selves again. Only now does Hilda find out Trundle has tricked her; he is the mountain king, and now that he is free and has his eye (the red orb) back, he plans to attack Trolberg and wake up Amma, the mother of all Trolls. Trundle is killed in a confrontation with the Trolberg Safety Patrol, and Hilda is able to convince them not to harm the other trolls since that will wake up Amma. After the adventure, Hilda and the trolls remain in contact, with Baba sometimes visiting Hilda's house, and Hilda sometimes going out into the wilderness with Baba and her mom.

#### Season 3

Pickin up at least a year after the events of the movie, Hilda is now 13 years old.

At the start of the season, it's summer and for the first time in her life Hilda is visiting her great-aunt Astrid in Astrid's homevillage Tofoten. David and Frida also come along for the ride. While in Tofoten, Hilda learns about Fairies and becomes quite interested in them. Convinced that there are real fairies in Tofoten, she leads David and Frida in a search for them. She is proven right when, after following her aunt Astrid one night, she finds a real Fairy Mound, but things take a turn for the worse when she, Frida and David all end up in the borderlands of Fairy Country while investigating the mound. They are rescued by Astrid and Johanna, and Hilda learns something similar happened to Johanna when she was young. Following this experience, Johanna cuts the trip to Tofoten short and takes the kids back home.

When returning home from Tofoten, Hilda brings with her a set of pan pipes, and a wooden charm that Astrid gave her. The adventure in Tofoten keeps haunting her however. Hilda is being watched by two shadowy figures, and also has nightmare about them. In "Chapter 3: The Giantslayer", she breaks her charm and when asking Astrid for advice, she is told about the Faratok tree. When Hilda seeks out the tree to get wood to fix her charm, she meets Wood Man and along with him ends up in ancient times when it turns out the tree allows for time travel. In the past she meets the ancient Giants and tries to make peace between them and a group of humans led by the giantslayer Halvor, but the giants ultimately still depart from the Earth. The Faratok Tree is accidentally burned down during the adventure, but Wood Man allows Hilda to have some of the remaining wood to fix her charm.

In "Chapter 4: The Laughing Merman", Hilda learns she and her friends have build up a bad reputation among the Sparrow Scouts for always getting into weird adventures. When a new girl, Louise, is assigned to their group for a rafting expedition, they try their best not to let anything weird happen. But after David loses the map of the river, they end up on a wrong riverarm and meet the merman Eugene, who tricks them into coming to his cave to be his captive audience forever. Thanks to Louise, Hilda and friends are able to beat Eugene's challenge to win their freedom, and Louise reveals she actually wanted to see one of Hilda's adventures. She is welcomed into Hilda's group, but does not hang out with them again after this episode.

In "Chapter 5: The Job", Anders returns to Trolberg to see Hilda for the first time in several years. With Johanna's (reluctant) permission, Anders takes Hilda and her friends for lunch in The Salty Maiden. There, he promises he will try to stick around longer this time, but he needs a job. Thus, when a man known only as the Polecat enters the tavern, looking for someone to do a job for him. Hilda immediately volunteers Anders, and the Polecat accepts. He wants Anders to pick up a package at the castle ruins, where his crew will be waiting for him. Since Anders has no car, the Polecat lends him his truck. Hilda comes along for the ride since she knows a shorter way. She accompanies her father, who even lets her drive for a while, to the ruins, though along the way the truck gets a flat tire that needs to be replaced. Once at the ruins, Hilda learns the package Anders had to pick up is a chest with gold belonging to a troll. She thus refuses to help steal it, which leads to an argument between her, Anders and the Polecat's other helpers Gunther and Garth. Then both Johanna and the troll show up. Anders distracts the troll, and vanishes without a trace after the troll corners him in the dungeon. Hilda and Johanna spend some time looking for Anders, but don't find him and Johanna concludes he ran of again.

In "Chapter 6: The Forgotten Lake", Johanna buys a new car as the old one was destroyed during the events of the movie, and goes camping with Hilda. During the trip they come across a lake where years ago Johanna was attacked by a creature named the Spider Frog, after which her parents trapped the creature in the lake. Hilda accidentally frees the Spider Frog when she removes the net and magical charms that were keeping it trapped, and it captures her. Johanna is able to save Hilda and tries to escape with her, but they are ultimately unsuccesful in evading the monster for long. It ends up eating them both, only to vomit them out again as they are too human, and thus upset its stomach.

In "Chapter 7: Strange Frequencies", Hilda's radio begins to pick up signals that she believes are encoded messages from her father. She spends days in her room trying to decode them with Alfur's help, to the point it begins to worry Johanna. Around the same time the Nisse of Trolberg begin to steal from each other, so Frida decides to hold a townhall meeting to try to get them to talk things out. She wants Hilda to help, but Hilda is too occupied by her obession with the radio signals and only agrees after a nisse steals her radio. The townhall meeting ends in chaos when Hilda spots the nisse with her radio there and tries to take it back, causing another temporary rift in her friendship with Frida. Hilda fixes her mistake by offering a new solution to the Nisse problem; a lending library, where Nisse can borrow items on the condition they bring them back later.

Hilda's suspicions regarding the radio turn out to be correct; the broadcasts are from Anders, who has ended up in Fairy Country and is now there with Victoria van Gale. Along with her friends, Hilda secretly travels back to Tofoten. While Frida and David stand guard, Hilda re-enters the Fairy Mound. She manages to reach the outer island where Victoria and Anders are, and tries to escape Fairy Country with Anders. They manage thanks to Frida using her magic to make a portal in the Fairy Mound, but Hilda goes back in after she learns Johanna had also come to Tofoten and went into the Fairy Mound to look for her. The Fairy Mound then collapses, trapping Hilda and Johanna inside. Hilda now finds herself on Fairy Isle, where she runs into Johanna. Johanna has magcially reverted back to a child upon entering the Isle, and neither girl realizes who the other is. They team up to navigate the isle. Astrid also follows them there after having been warned by David and Anders. Johanna and Hilda eventually find Hilda's maternal grandparents, Phinium and Lydia, on the isle, and upon finding them Johanna reverts back to an adult. When Astrid also arrives, Hilda is told the history of her family and thus learns she is part Fairy; hence her blue hair.

Now that Johanna has returned to her parents, the bargain they made with The Fairy Entity is broken and Johanna and Hilda can never leave Fairy Country again. Johanna doesn't mind as she is with her family again. She tries to convince Hilda that staying here would be like going back to when they still lived in the wilderness, but Hilda is having none of it as she knows the island is essentially a prison where nothing ever changes. When Twig comes to their aid with the Deer-Fox Herd, who can freely travel between Fairy Country and the Human World, Johanna is torn between leaving with her daughter or staying with her parents, but ultimately chooses the latter. The island tries to keep the two from leaving by creating several obstacles in their way. Johanna and Hilda almost fall in a deep chasm, but Johanna's fairypowers awaken and they fly across.

With help of the deerfoxes, Hilda and Johanna return home, but since the bargain was broken, Johanna's childhood sickness returns and she comes close to dying. She is saved when Astrid voluntarily takes her place in the bargain with the Fairy Entity. Astrid in turn is saved when Victoria Van Gale takes her place.

The season ends with Johanna and Hilda back in Trolberg, while Phinium and Lydia keep watching over them from Fairy Country.

In the graphic novels "Hildafolk" through "Hilda and the Mountain King", Hilda's life is in many ways identical to the animated series; like her befriending Alfur and Jorgen, being forced to move to Trolberg after her house is destroyed, meeting the Great Raven, joining the Sparrow Scouts but failing to get any badges the first year, meeting Tontu, getting send to the Stone Forest along with Johanna, where they meet Baba and her mother, and the adventure that follows in which Hilda becomes the victim of a Changeling spell, and subsequently is tricked by Trundle into releasing him from his prison, but ultimately manages to thwart his plan.

However, the events depicted in "Chapter 4" to "Chapter 11" of Season 1, and the events of "Chapter 1" (minus the scene at the start of the episode) through "Chapter 12" of Season 2 never happen in the graphic novels, and there are some notable differences between the two continuities:

* The Fairy plotline from season 3 does not happen in the graphic novels, so it is unclear if Hilda is part fairy in this continuity.
* In the graphic novels, Alfur never moves with her to Trolberg.
* Hilda has less trouble adapting to Trolberg, being eager to go explore the city while Johanna is reluctant to let her explore the city on her own.
* Hilda is less frequently seen with her friends David and Frida than in the animated series.
* In the graphic novels, Hilda is more prone to getting lost, whether she is in the wilderness or Trolberg. In "Hilda and the Bird Parade", she admitted to her mom she actually liked being lost.
* The early pages of "Hilda and the Stone Forest" show her going on various adventures without her mothers knowing, and uses various excuses to cover them up. None of these adventures where adapted into episodes. Another major difference between this story and the animated adaptation is the reason Hilda gets grounded; she is caught by Johanna after secretly taking Frida for a flight with the Great Raven.
* At the end of the adventure in the Stone Forest, Hilda and Johanna are rescued by the Great Raven in the graphic novel.
* In "Hilda and the Mountain King", David and Frida are in no way looking for Hilda, and Hilda learns about Amma from Trundle's brother.

The Hilda Tie-In Series adapts Chapters 1 - 7 and 10 - 13 of Season 1, all episodes of Season 2 except for 11, 12, and the main story of 9, and all episodes of Season 3. In these books Hilda's role is largely identical to the animated series. However, the adventures happen in a different order than the animated series, mostly so the plots of multiple episodes can be mixed into a single story. A few other notable differences:

* When Hilda remembers how she met Twig, it is mentioned that 2 years passed between her rescuing Twig, and him returning the favor by rescuing her. In the series, these events happened on the same day.
* Rather than the subplot of Frida breaking up her friendship with Hilda following the loss of her book, it happens due to the adventure with the Bragga Family and the Lindworm, and Hilda is able to restore their friendship by apologizing to Frida for dragging her into the danger. She also loses her friendship with David for the same reason, while in the series he stayed by her side during Hilda's falling out with Frida, and restores it in the same way.
* Like in the graphic novels and animated series, Hilda is grounded, but here it happens because Johanna found out Hilda was responsible for sabotaging the mechanical bellringers instead of the adventure with the Kraken.
* The adventure with the viking clans happens while Hilda and her friends secretly go camping in the Great Forest instead of them going on Sparrow Scouts camp, and Johanna finding out about this is what leads to her and Hilda's argument prior to their adventure in the Stone Forest.
* The final book, "Hilda and the White Woff", does not end with Hilda being turned into a troll. The events from the movie are not adapted at all or even referred to, so it can be assumed they never happened in this continuity and Hilda has thus never been a troll here.
* The plot in Fairy Country leaves out the part where Johanna becomes a child again. Instead, Hilda's grandparents find her and take her to their house, and Johanna later joins them after finding her own way there.

## Powers and Abilities

* **Speed and Agility:** Despite her young age, Hilda is a skilled sprinter, able to quickly navigate woodland and urban environments without tiring and can outrun even the most dangerous magical creatures such as Trolls and the Time Worm.
* **Swordsmanship:** In "Chapter 3: The Witch", Hilda shows some skill with a sword while fighting off a plant creature. She demonstrates this again in "Chapter 3: The Giantslayer", where whe was able to fight and disarm Halvor in a swordfight.
* **Flight:** Being 1/4 of fairy, Hilda is only able to fly when she is holding hands with another fairy such as Phinium and Johanna. If she lets go of another fairy, her ability is lost and becomes affected by gravity.
* **Troll Form:** After getting swapped with Baba at the end of "Chapter 13: The Stone Forest", Hilda becomes a troll and acquires many of their abilities and weaknesses. In addition to being able to understand their language and gaining access to their magic, her increased physical strength and endurance allows her to hurl boulders, leap great distances, relax on a mountaintop with no ill effects and roar loud enough to be heard in Trolberg. Unfortunately, she also can't swim, turns to stone when exposed to sunlight and has become extremely sensitive to the sound of ringing bells (even after she turned back into a human, the ringing of bells made her anxious). The Changeling Spell was removed once she reunited with Johanna.
	+ **Residual Powers**: After returning to human form, Hilda can still understand her once-fellow trolls and even hear and understand Amma. She also demonstrated this power in "Chapter 5: The Job" when she talked with a troll in Fort Ahlberg.
	+ **Strength**: This ability is debatable, but even before she turned into a troll, there have been instances where Hilda was able to carry or shift heavy objects with little difficulty.

## Appearances

As the main character, Hilda appears in all entries of the graphic novel series and the tie-in books.

## Behind the Scenes

### Voice

Hilda is voiced by Bella Ramsey, who is best known for their role as Lyanna Mormont in the HBO Fantasy Series *Game of Thrones* in Seasons 6-8.

### Design

Hilda has had her iconic blue hair since the very first drawing Luke Pearson made of her, but her other features like the yellow scarf and red boots came later. Her red boots were inspired by a quote from Tove Jansson: “Lie on the bridge and watch the water flowing past. Or run, or wade through the swamp in your red boots. Or roll yourself up and listen to the rain falling on the roof. It’s very easy to enjoy yourself.” Hilda underwent several changes in design between the first graphic novels, especially since Luke Pearson was still experimenting with how to best draw Hilda from various angles. In "Hilda and the Midnight Giant" she was drawn with freckles, which only appeared in that story. In the first two stories her arms and legs looked like the rubber hose limbs from 1930's era cartoon characters, but starting from "Hilda and the Bird Parade" Luke Pearson tries to give her more natural looking limbs. Hilda reached her final design with "Hilda and the Stone Forest".

## Trivia

* Her last name is unknown.
* Although some people managed to find out that Hilda got a bit taller during season 2, it was never confirmed officially until 28th May 2023, when an animator of the show ( From Mercury Filmworks ) verified this information on Hildacord server.
* In the tie-in book "Hilda and The Great Parade", Hilda was taught to swim and learned how to hold her breath as long as possible by Johanna every summer at a pond near their old cabin in the wilderness. This potentially explains why she is confident to swim from the city to Cauldron Island in "Chapter 7: The Lost Clan". It however contradicts the short comic The Wood Man's Head, in which Hilda can't swim.
* She inherited her blue hair from her maternal grandfather, Phinium.

## References

1. ↑ https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/729093/hilda-and-the-faratok-tree-by-luke-pearson/9781838748777
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Confirmed by an animator of the show on Hilda's discord server ( Hildacord ): Image Link / Discord's Image Link / Original Message Link ( Must be in server and level 5 )
3. ↑ Confirmed in interview with the show's director, Andy Coyle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCL8398E080
4. ↑ Luke Pearson at Pictoplasma Berlin 2019

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