Hilda and the White Woff

Hilda and the White Woff is the sixth book in the Hilda Tie-In Series of children's novels, based on the Hilda animated series. The book was published on Nov 17, 2020

Synopsis
We rejoin our favorite blue-haired heroine as she sets out to rescue her mum from a Two-Headed Troll! Discover rock-eating slugs, a friendly baby troll, and the story behind Twig becoming Hilda’s very own deerfox. Meanwhile, on a quest to become fearless, David stumbles across a group of Vikings who appoint him their messenger during a fierce and bloody battle. There is no shortage of unexpected twists, turns and new friends in this sixth installment of the Hilda fiction series.

Plot
At the start of the story, Hilda lies to her mom that she is going to have a sleepover at Frida’s house to help her with homework. In reality, she, Frida and David plan to go camping in the great forest in order to collect dust from Fort Ahlberg, which Frida needs for an invisibility spell she is practicing. It takes them till dark to get there, since David slows them down due to him not wanting to take any risks (like crossing a river by using a fallen tree). When they set up camp at the ruins that night, Hilda sees dozens of Troll-bonfires  in the mountains. She also notices they are close to the Screaming Stones; a pile of rocks that supposedly scream at night.

Before they go to sleep, Hilda tells her friends how she first met Twig; five years ago, she found the young Twig while he was stuck between some rocks, and freed him. Two years later, when Hilda fell off a cliff and was attacked by an eagle, Twig came to her rescue, but in the process gave up his chance to return to migrate with the rest of his herd.

David finds the story too scary, and leaves partway through. As he takes a walk, scolding himself for being such a scaredy-cat, he falls off a steep slope and loses consciousness. When he wakes up, he is in a cave inhabited by Vikings. Their leader, Torgund, found him. He explains David that they came to the valley to seek the Medallion of Sigurd, which can forever remove anyone’s fears. Their only obstacle are the Knudsen clan. David is convinced by Torgund to be their messenger on the battlefield so he too can use the medallion and become brave. David thus participates in the battle, which ends with all the Knudsen Clan members dead.

The following day, Frida and Hilda are woken up by a much more confident David. He rapidly packs up the tent and leads the girls to the Screaming Stones, performing several dangerous acts along the way, such as jumping off a waterfall and scaring a bear. The girls begin to worry about what happened to him. When they reach the screaming stones, they see a tall, humanoid creature emerge from the swamp. They follow him, and along the way David tells the girls about his adventure from last night, that ended with him and Torgunds clan getting the medallion. The creature goes straight to the battlefield, and uses a potion to revive all the fallen Knudsen. When David sees this, he warns Torgund and his clan, who immediately set out to fight their rivals again. This time however, their new fearlessness makes them too reckless to fight smart, and the Knudsen win. David too gets decapitated in the fight.

Frightened by what happened to their friend, Hilda and Frida seek out the swamp creature to ask for his help. He reveals his name is Sigurd, the original owner of the medallion. He has been reviving both clans for centuries now so they fight each other every night, as a punishment for stealing his property. Hilda convinces him that it’s time to stop this prank. Sigurd revives the Vikings and David one last time, and David is restored to his usual, scared self in the process; just like how Hilda and Frida like him.

When Hilda gets home, she is confronted by a furious Johanna, who has discovered Hilda was not actually at Frida’s house. When Hilda admits they went camping, she and Johanna get into an argument that ends with Hilda getting grounded again. Hilda is determined to go to Frida’s house in spite of her grounding, and blackmails Tontu in to taking her there through Nowhere Space. Johanna catches them in the act, and tries to pull Hilda back from Nowhere Space. This causes her, Hilda, Twig and Tontu to get sucked into limbo, and except for Tontu they all get send to the Stone Forest.

The following morning, Alfur notices Hilda and Johanna are gone, and warns David and Frida. They fear that Hilda ran away and Johanna went looking for her (a courier elf overheard the argument from the night before), so Frida sends Alfur back to the flat while she and David will search the Great Forest. Once there, Frida discovers a white woff, much to her excitement (they are considered a good sign for witches). They also notice an airship from the Safety patrol, with Erik Ahlberg and Gerda Gustav on board. When the White Woff almost collides with the airship, Gerda is forced to make an evasive maneuver, which causes the airship to crash and explode close to Frida and David. Gerda and Erik are able to get out in time. Frida however has sprained her ankle in the incident because Erik tripped her when fleeing from the crash.

Meanwhile, Hilda, Johanna and Twig try to find their way out of the stone forest. After hours of wandering, they find a waterfall, but it is surrounded by dozens of trolls. Because they’re thirsty, all three of them sneak closer to the water to drink some. They are found however by a young troll and it’s mother, who is leading a goat packed with provisions. The mother troll chases them, but the three are able to escape the mother by hiding among the provisions on the goat’s back.

In the forest, Gerda and David salvage  an emergency supplies box from the wreck of the airship. It contains an emergency blimp, but it takes some hours to build it. The sun sets before they are done, and a group of trolls finds them. Erik foolishly antagonizes them. Frida tries to protect Erik by using an invisibility spell on him, but ends up transforming him into a bug. This at least frightens the trolls.

The mother troll leads her child and the goat out of the stone forest to a campfire, where she and some other trolls enjoy the food she brought. When a brutish, two-headed troll attacks the group to steal their food, Hilda and Johanna attempt to escape unseen. Unfortunately, Twig gets stuck among the provisions, and is taken back into the stone forest when the two-headed troll steals the goat. Johanna reluctantly goes after him to help Twig, and orders Hilda to stay behind.

As Gerda, David and Frida spend the night in the woods, they get company from a troll. David, retaining some of his courage from the medallion, offers the Troll a bag of Jorts from the survival kit. The troll accepts the jorts and even joins the group at their campfire.

When Johanna fails to return in time, Hilda makes a torch and, defying her mothers orders, also goes back into the Stone Forest. She finds the lair of the two-headed troll, who has fallen asleep and now blocks the door. She looks for a different way in, and finds a tunnel that ends at a trapdoor with a padlock. She tricks one of the rock-chewing slugs to bite through the padlock or her. In the lair, Johanna and Twig are trying to find another way out, but accidentally wake up the troll. They only escape thanks to Hilda breaking open the trapdoor, but soon find themselves lost again in the forest. They run into the baby troll and her mother again, who, when she notices the two-headed troll chasing the humans, quickly takes Hilda, Johanna and Twig with her to her own cave. There, she treats the humans as guests and provides them with food and blankets.

The following morning, Gerda, Frida and David are visited by Alfur, riding Cedric. He tells them Tontu came home last night and told him where Hilda and Johanna are. In the Stone Forest, the troll mother draws Johanna a map to show her the way out, and creates a woff-shaped fireball to guide them. Along the way they encounter the Two-Headed Troll again, who chases them to the exit. He briefly grabs Hilda, but lets go when Twig bites him. As they reach the exit, Alfur comes to their aid with Cedric. They distract the troll so he fails to notice that he’s nearing the exit, and runs outside where the sun instantly petrifies him into a large boulder, which continues to roll after Hilda and Johanna as they run down the mountain. Johanna is rescues by Gerda, David and Frida in the emergency blimp, while Hilda and Twig jump off a cliff and are caught by the white woff.

The whole group returns safely to Hilda’s house in Trolberg. Frida  transforms Erik back into a human. He is naturally enraged at having spend time as a bug. He fires Gerda, and promises the others they will hear from him before angrily departing. That night, as Hilda goes to bed, she and Johanna finally reconcile from their argument earlier.

Humans

 * Hilda
 * Johanna (Called “Mum” in this story)
 * David
 * Frida
 * Trolberg Safety Patrol
 * Erik Ahlberg
 * Gerda Gustav
 * Torgund's clan
 * Torgund
 * Olaf
 * Bjarnsen
 * Elof
 * Uli
 * Solveig
 * Knudsen clan
 * Knudsen
 * Gunnhild
 * Fergurdsen
 * Errol
 * Redsdottir
 * Hrothgar

Creatures

 * Woff
 * Sigurd
 * Walking Land Creature (cameo)
 * Forest Giant (cameo)
 * Rock-Chewing Slug (called Rock-Eating Slugs in this book)
 * Cedric

Trolls

 * Baba
 * Baba's mom
 * Two-Headed Troll

Elves

 * Alfur

Nisse

 * Tontu (alpha)

Deer-foxes

 * Twig

Mentioned characters
The following characters/creatures are mentioned, but make no appearance:
 * Emil Gammelplassen
 * Ms. Hallgrim
 * Marra

Analysis
The book combines characters and plot elements from the episodes "Chapter 4: The Eternal Warriors" & "Chapter 13: The Stone Forest". The events from the flashbacks in "Chapter 9: The Deerfox" are told by Hilda in a story.

Like the previous book, the novel takes several liberties with the episodes it adapts. Included:
 * In the animated series, the adventure with the viking clans happened while Hilda, Frida and David where on a camping trip with the Sparrow Scouts, rather than them sneaking off to go camping on their own.  As such, the adventure did not lead to Hilda getting in trouble with her mother.
 * In the series, Hilda and Twig go off on their own to collect the dust from the castle ruin, and it only takes them a couple of hours tops.
 * In the animated series, Hilda meeting Twig, and him coming to rescue her, both happen on the same day. Here, the two events are 2 years apart.
 * Hilda mentions she read about Deerfoxes in a library book. In the series, Wood Man tells her there are no books about Deerfoxes.
 * In the series, Frida is the one who indirectly causes the airship to crash when she startles a group of sleeping woff. Here, there is only the white woff, and Frida is in no way responsible for it almost colliding with the airship.
 * The book omits a scene where Hilda and her mom hide from the two-headed Troll in a tunnel filled with rock-chewing slugs, only to find out that tunnel is home to a gigantic slug.
 * In the series, Ahlberg never realizes he has been turned into a bug and continues to act like his normal self upon being transformed back. He also doesn’t fire Gerda.
 * The book does not end with the cliffhanger in which the female troll uses a changeling spell on Hilda and her daughter, though two final images of the troll imply that she is going to use the spell in a future installment.

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