Astrid is Hilda's Great Aunt and Johanna's aunt. She lives in Tofoten.
The character does not appear in the graphic novels, She makes her debut in "Hilda and the Fairy Village", the ninth book of the Tie-in books,[1] and appears in Season 3 of the series.
Appearance[]
Astrid is a short, elderly woman with greying cerulean blue hair in which she always carries a twig of wood.
As a native fairy, she has pointy ears, but these are usually hidden under her hair.
Abilities[]
As a fairy, Astrid is skilled at making magic charms, and has several other magical powers.
In Fairy Country, she was able to fly, but forgot how to use the ability when she moved to the human world and spent years with Johanna. During her return to Fairy Country in "Chapter 8: The Fairy Isle", she reuses this ability.
Biography[]
Animated series[]
Astrid is a fairy who originally came from Fairy Country.
In her youth, she and her brother Phinium would frequently visit the human world. Here they met the human girl Lydia and the three instantly became friends. As they reached adulthood, Phinium and Lydia fell in love and married while Astrid would visit less and less, not in the least because traveling between the human world and Fairy Country got harder and harder. When Phinium decided to stay in the human world forever to be with his family rather than risk getting stuck in Fairy Country, he convinced Astrid to do the same so they could be together. The whole family moved from Lydia's cabin to a bigger house in Tofoten.
For a while, all was well and Astrid helped Phinium and Lydia to take care of Johanna. However, due to a deal the two were forced to make with the Fairy Entity when their daughter Johanna got sick, they were forced to leave Tofoten for Fairy Isle when Johanna turned ten and leave Johanna in the care of Astrid. At their request, Astrid performed a memory spell on Johanna to erase most of her childhood memories, so she would not feel like her parents abandoned her.
At some point in the past, she signed the paperwork to see Elves.
Astrid stayed in Tofoten after Johanna moved to a boarding school in Trolberg following a narrow encounter with a Fairy Mound. She still lives there at the start of Season 3, making a living selling her homemade charms to tourists, and taking care of mail orders. After Hilda was born, Astrid would occasionally visit her and Johanna, but they never visited her in Tofoten. That is until the events of "Hilda and the Fairy Village", when she invites Hilda and Johanna over to her house for the summer, and allows for David, Frida, and Tontu to come as well. She gives all of them some of her homemade charms, and spends some good time with Johanna.
On their second night in Tofoten, when the group goes camping, Hilda catches Astrid sneaking out of the tent. Hilda then follows her, and sees Astrid perform some rituals near a nearby hill, including placing a lot of her homemade charms around it. When Hilda and friends investigate the hill the next day, they learn it's a real Fairy Mound and are pulled into Fairy Country. Astrid and Johanna save them just in time. Astrid admits she was afraid something like this would happen, hence her rituals from last night. Johanna is understandably furious that Astrid never told her there was a real Fairy Mound in Tofoten, and that she endangered Hilda like this. She plans to take the first train back to Trolberg.
Hilda takes the charm Astrid gave her with her to Trolberg. In "Chapter 3: The Giantslayer", after she breaks the charm, she calls Astrid for advice. Astrid tells her about the Faratok tree and how Hilda can fix the charm with it's wood.
In "Chapter 8: The Fairy Isle", after Hilda learns that her father Anders is in Fairy Country, she decides to go back there to help him while Frida and David stand guard outside the Fairy Mound. Johanna tries to warn Astrid, but can't reach her, and thus goes to Tofoten herself. Thanks to Frida magically creating a portal in the mound, Hilda is able to rescue Anders, but by then Johanna has already entered the Fairy Mound, looking for her daughter, so Hilda goes back in. Frida can't hold the portal open much longer and faints. David and Anders take her to Astrid's house. When Astrid learns what happened, she gives David instructions on how to nurse Frida back to health, and then goes to Fairy Country herself to look for her niece and grandniece.
She finds Hilda, who is accompanied by a young girl, unaware the girl is her mom who has regressed back to her ten-year-old self upon entering Fairy Country. Astrid tries to prevent Hilda from going further, but Hilda breaks free and hops on a White Woff along with Johanna. They eventually find Johanna's parents, who are living in a replica of Lydia's old house. When Astrid also catches up with them, they reveal the whole story of Johanna's past and Astrid restores the memories she locked away, allowing Johanna to recall her childhood. However, now that Johanna and Hilda are here, the bargain has been broken and Astrid knows the Fairy Entity will never let them go now. When Johanna and Hilda attempt to escape anyway with help of the Deer-foxes, Astrid goes to bargain with the Fairy Entity. She points out to the entity how it is dying and how it is only making things harder for itself by stubbornly holding onto the claim it has on Johanna's life, even though there's nothing to be gained from this claim. However, the Entity is enraged by Astrid's rudeness and does everything in it's power to stop Hilda and Johanna from leaving. It is ultimately unable to prevent them from escaping, but with the bargain broken, Johanna's childhood sickness returns and she comes close to dying. She is saved when Astrid finally gets through to the Fairy Entity by offering her own life for Johanna's. Astrid in turn is then saved when Victoria Van Gale (who had ended up in Fairy Country after her botched Nowhere Space experiment in "Chapter 5: The Windmill) arrives in the cave and offers herself to the Entity in Astrid's place. The Entity accepts and spares Astrid, but casts her out of Fairy Country for good for being so rude. Astrid doesn't mind since she gets to return to her family this way.
She is last seen when The Pooka returns to her all the stuff he borrowed from her.
Tie-in books[]
All the episodes set in Tofoten are combined into the book "Hilda and the Fairy Village". As such, Hilda's first and second trip into the fairy mound both take place during her stay-over at Astrid's house, and she does not go back to Trolberg in between.
In this continuity, Astrid also does not go back to Fairy Country herself until the moment Hilda and Johanna make their escape attempt, and she goes straight to the Fairy Entity to bargain. She thus does not reunite with Phinium and Lydia.
Appearances[]
| Season 3 | ||||||||||||
| Hilda Opening Sequence: | Appears | |||||||||||
| 1. Chapter 1: The Train to Tofoten: | Appears | 2. Chapter 2: The Fairy Mound | Appears | |||||||||
| 3. Chapter 3: The Giantslayer: | Appears | 4. Chapter 4: The Laughing Merman | Absent | |||||||||
| 5. Chapter 5: The Job: | Mentioned | 6. Chapter 6: The Forgotten Lake: | Mentioned | |||||||||
| 7. Chapter 7: Strange Frequencies: | Absent | 8. Chapter 8: The Fairy Isle: | Appears | |||||||||
Trivia[]
- In Hilda and the Mountain King, her name was first revealed on a VHS tape that Baba played with titled "Astrid's visit".
- In "Hilda's World: A guide to Trolberg, the wilderness, and beyond", Hilda mentions Astrid. Hilda invites the reader to pick up some of Astrid's handmade charms.