Lydia

General
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**Lydia** is the maternal grandmother of Hilda and mother of Johanna. She is a former human turned fairy who first appeared in the tie-in book "Hilda and the Fairy Village" and in season 3 of the animated series. She is first seen as a silhouette in "Chapter 2: The Fairy Mound" and makes several appearances like this throughout the season before being officially introduced in "Chapter 8: The Fairy Isle".

## Appearance

Lydia is a human looking woman with long, blonde hair.

Due to her long stay in Fairy Country she looks younger than she actually is, however the exact reason for this varies between the series and the book. In the animated series Astrid explains to Hilda that the island causes people and objects to appear the way the island thinks the viewer wants them to appear, meaning she only looks young to Hilda and Johanna. In the books, it is stated she remained young because time moves differently on Fairy Isle.

## Abilities

Due to being transformed into a fairy by her long stay in Fairy Country, Lydia has gained the ability to fly.

## Biography

### Animated series

As a child, Lydia lived in the cabin build by her father. One day she met the fairies Astrid and Phinium. She became close friends with them, despite the rule that fairies are not allowed to interact with humans. As they grew up, Phinium and Lydia fell in love, married, and had a daughter, Johanna. They moved into the human village of Tofoten together. Sadly, disaster struck when Johanna fell gravely ill and the doctor claimed she would not survive. To save their daughter, Phinium and Lydia struck a deal with the Fairy Entity. The entity agreed to cure Johanna if her parents would give Johanna to it on her tenth birthday. Out of options, they agreed.

Some time later, after Johanna was attacked by the Spider Frog, Phinium and Lydia trapped the beast in a lake using magic charms. They also taught Johanna how to ride a Woff.

When Johanna turned ten and it was time for Phinium and Lydia to uphold their end of the bargain, they negotiated a new bargain with the Fairy Entity; they would give themselves to the Entity instead and move to Fairy Isle forever, never to visit the human world again. Again, the Entity agreed. Thus, Phinium and Lydia were forced to leave their daughter behind in the care of her aunt Astrid and moved to Fairy Isle. At their request, Astrid performed a memory spell on Johanna so she would not feel like her parents abandoned her. This also erased Johanna's memories of the more fantastical elements of her youth, like her encounter with the Spider Frog. Phinium and Lydia settled in a replica of their old cabin on Fairy Isle, and through the islands watch tower kept an eye on Johanna and eventually Hilda after the girl first entered the Fairy Mound. Due to her stay in Fairy Country, Lydia became a fairy herself. When they saw Hilda's father Anders was in danger after he got trapped in the dungeons of Fort Ahlberg with an angry troll, they pulled him into Fairy Country to save him.

Hilda first meets her grandparents after she finds out her father is in Fairy Country and uses the Fairy Mound in Tofoten to go there herself. She rescues Anders, only to learn that Johanna also went into the Fairy Mound to look for her. Once in Fairy Country, Johanna reverts back to her ten-year-old self and forgets all about Hilda. She instead thinks she is looking for her own parents. Hilda teams up with the young Johanna, neither of them knowing who the other is. When the girls are sleeping on top of a large flower, Lydia finds them, but she flies away when Hilda wakes up. With help of a White Woff, Hilda and Johanna are able to follow Lydia to the cave where she and Phinium are now living. Upon being reunited with her parents, Johanna is restored back to her adult self. When Astrid also shows up in Fairy Country, they tell Hilda and Johanna the full story and restore Johanna's memories. Together, they spend some time in Fairy Isle, bonding and having a picnic. Unfortunately, Johanna and Hilda being here means the bargain has been broken, and the island will now never let them leave.

Phinium and Lydia both try to convince Johanna and Hilda that it is best to submit to the will of the island and the Fairy Entity. Johanna is tempted but Hilda knows the island, beautiful as it may be, is essentially a prison where nothing ever changes. Thus, when Twig leads his herd of Deer-foxes to Fairy Isle to rescue them, Hilda convinces her grandparents to assist them, while Astrid goes to bargain with the Fairy Entity. When Johanna and Hilda try to make their way to the lightbridge of the Deer-foxes, the island fights back, but with help of Phinium, Lydia and the Deer-foxes they are able to escape. Phinium and Lydia stay behind in Fairy Country, since they could never go back anymore. They are last seen using the watchtower to watch Hilda and her friends enjoy the Bird Parade.

### Tie-in series

"Hilda and the Fairy Village" adapts the events from "Chapter 8: The Fairy Isle", but removes many of the scenes from the animated series. Here, Hilda meets her grandparents when they pick her up from the boat she and Anders were trying to escape in, and bring her to their cabin. When they tell her their backstory, Lydia claims here that she grew up in Tofoten while in the animated series she moved there after Johanna was born. Johanna meets up with them there, and Astrid never comes to them as she goes to the Fairy entity straight away. Lydia is last seen when the island creates is a huge flytrap plant that almost eats Johanna, but Lydia saves her by chopping it down with her bare hands. She stays to further hold the plant off, and urges Johanna and Hilda to go on. She is not seen again after this.

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