Hilda and the Laughing Merman is the seventh book in the Hilda Tie-In Series of children's novels, based on the Hilda animated series. The book was released on November 7, 2023.
Synopsis[]
Based on the hit Netflix series, join Hilda – explorer, adventurer, avid sketchbook-keeper and friend to (almost!) every creature in the valley – as she heads to Scout Camp.
Join our beloved heroine as she heads to Scout Camp, hoping for the most normal scouting expedition ever. But, when her expedition map gets lost and she encounters a Merman fleeing a vicious sea serpent, Hilda is flung into her next adventure…
Summary[]
Hilda goes on another camping trip with the Sparrow Scouts. However, she misplaced her tent stakes and Tontu claims he does not have them but that another Nisse must have stolen them. Knowing how much Nisse hate and distrust each other, Hilda decides to organize a meeting next Saturday at the town hall so all Nisse in Trolberg can talk things over.
During the bus ride to the camp, Hilda is bothered by two scouts named Jacob and Harry, who remind her how she, David and Frida always end up getting into weird situations. On the second day of camp, the Scouts go rafting on the River Björg in groups of four. Due to their reputation, most scouts are reluctant to join Hilda, David and Frida, but ultimately a girl named Louise joins them. Hilda hopes to earn the Fish Finder River Badge and thus tries to steer clear of adventures this time. However, things go south when David loses the map Raven Leader gave them, and subsequently the four kids end up paddling up a wrong river way.
On this river way, the four kids meet a merman named Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerynchwyrndrob, or Eugene for short, who is being chased by a sea serpent and asks the kids for help. They manage to escape the serpent by paddling onto a section of the river with rapid currents, which unfortunately leads straight to a waterfall. They survive the plunge but lose three of their four paddles. Eugene warns them there are more waterfalls ahead and the only other way back to the main river is through a cave.
The cave turns out to contain a stage build by Eugene, who considers himself a great entertainer. Through a song, Eugene reveals he used to live in the ocean where he used to sing for crowds until a fisherman caught him and eventually dumped him in the river with no apparent way home. He is glad to finally have an audience again and doesn’t care if the kids are not interested. The sea serpent they encountered earlier was just a trick by him to lure the kids to his cave and now he plans to keep them as his audience forever. In an attempt to escape, David makes a deal with Eugene that he will let them go if he cannot get them to like his performance in the next five minutes. Only Louise manages to hold out till the end and is allowed to leave, but she convinces Eugene to give the others another chance. The second challenge involves the kids having to decide which of 9 potential exits out of the cave is the real one. Thanks to Louise they figure out the real exit is a whirlpool in the center. Eugene acknowledges defeat and tells the kids how to get back to the campsite. In return, Louise tells Eugene how to get back to the sea, and asks him to help get some revenge on Jacob and Harry.
When camp is over, Hilda asks her friends and Louise to help with the Nisse meeting she is organizing. Hilda is surprised when her mom comes to pick her up in a new car. However, on the way home the car breaks down due to a damaged radiator. Johanna is able to fix the damage, but it gets dark before she is done, and since Hilda still has her camping gear with her, she convinces her mom to camp here for the night. During their stay, Johanna helps Hilda fall asleep by playing some pan pipes she brought, but her music accidentally wakes up a creature called the spider frog in a nearby lake.
The following day Johanna sends Hilda to find water to refill the radiator. Hilda comes across the lake and finds a net held in place by figures made of sticks, stones, twine and grass. Hilda removes the net, keeps some of the figures in her pocket, and begins to fill up a gas canister with water when the spider frog grabs and abducts her. Hilda and Johanna give chase as the Spider Frog takes Hilda to a cave where he plans to eat her after he also captures Johanna. He traps Hilda with some web and leaves to find Johanna. Twig finds the cave but also gets caught in the web. Johanna however fetches a rotating saw from her toolkit in the car to free them. With great trouble the three manage to get back to their car without being seen by the Spider Frog, but as they drive away the spider frog gives chase. The car is still not fully fixed and the spider frog thus easily catches up with it.
Hilda realizes the net she removed from the lake was keeping the spider frog trapped, and the stick figures holding the net in place are actually magic charms for the same purpose. With the charms she still has with her, Hilda tries to hold the spider frog at bay. It works at first, but she runs out of charms and the creature captures and eats her, Johanna and Twig, only to immediately spit them out again. It turns out the Spider Frog cannot eat humans as they upset its digestion. Having lost his appetite, the Spider Frog leaves, but not before claiming that Johanna and he met before during Johanna’s childhood. Johanna has no memories of that encounter. As they continue their journey home, Hilda wonders if her grandparents perhaps trapped the Spider Frog after it tried to eat her mom years before.
Meanwhile, in Trolberg, the Nisse meeting begins, but Hilda is too late to attend. Frida tries her best to lead the meeting in Hilda’s place, but the meeting quickly escalates into a huge brawl because the Nisse keep accusing each other of having stealing and simply are too distrusting. When Hilda finally gets back to Trolberg, she finds Tontu and Frida sitting outside the town hall. They tell her how bad things went. Hilda however has another idea.
A few days later, Hilda and friends are awarded the Fish Finder River Badge with golden wings. Afterwards they check out Hilda’s new project; in the Nowhere Space of the Scout Hall Tontu has set up lending library for Nisse where they can borrow items they find in Nowhere space instead of stealing them from other Nisse. It is a great success. Louise reveals that they never lost the map of the river; she hid it because she was hoping to see one of Hilda’s famous adventures. Hilda is not mad however as she is happy someone likes her adventures, and welcomes Louise into her group as the fourth Freaky Friend.
Meanwhile, Eugene has made his way back to sea and is now performing for a group of seals.
Featured Characters[]
Humans[]
- Hilda
- Johanna (Called “Mum” in this story)
- David
- Frida
- Sparrow Scouts:
- Jacob
- Harry
- Colin
- Louise
- Raven Leader
Creatures[]
- Woff
- Eugene
- Sea Serpent (illusion only)
- Spider Frog
Nisse[]
- Tontu (alpha)
- Various unnamed Nisse.
Deer-foxes[]
Mentioned characters[]
The following characters/creatures are mentioned, but make no appearance:
- Jellybean (when Hilda recalls what happened on her first Sparrow Scouts camp)
- Marra (when Hilda recalls what happened on her first Sparrow Scouts camp)
- Rat King
- Tide Mice
- Torgund's clan & Knudsen clan.
- Frida's dad
Analysis[]
The book combines the plots and characters of "Chapter 4: The Laughing Merman", "Chapter 6: The Forgotten Lake", and most of "Chapter 7: Strange Frequencies" into a single story.
- In the series, Hilda finds the pan pipes with which Johanna wakes up the Spider Frog at Astrid's house, and brings them with he when she returns to Trolberg. Here, she gets them from Tontu when he tries to find her missing tent stakes in Nowhere Space, as she hasn’t visited Tofoten yet (those episodes are adapted in to “Hilda and the Fairy Village”).
- The series does not reveal if Hilda and friends actually win the Fish Finder River Badge, nor if they earn the Gold Wings because of meeting Eugene.
- The scene where Eugene is back in the sea and entertaining seals does not appear in the series.
- In the series, Louise is not involved in the project for setting up the Nisse lending library.
- In the series, Hilda and Johanna encounter the Spider Frog during a camping trip they voluntarily went on, rather than one they were forced to take due to their car breaking down after Johanna picks up Hilda from Sparrow Scouts camp.
- The encounter with the Spider Frog differs on several points; Hilda and Twig encounter the lake while looking for a place for Johanna to do some painting rather than trying to find water for the car radiator. Twig finds the net instead of Hilda when she went to get water for the radiator and Hilda does not drive the car.
- The subplot of Hilda picking up radio signals that appear to come from her father is left out in the book, as Anders has not appeared yet at this point in the book series. This subplot is instead incorporated into "Hilda and the Fairy Village".
- In the series, the Nisse meeting was Frida's idea from the start, rather than her being forced to take over from Hilda. And in the series, Hilda unintentionally starts the fight between the Nisse that leads to the meeting failing.
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