| — Name disclaimer — |
| All Nisse are named Tontu. This Tontu is designated Alpha because he's the first Nisse that Hilda meets. |
Tontu is a Nisse, who appears in both the graphic novels, the animated series, and the novelization.
Appearance[]
He is a humanoid creature about the size of a child, with a dis-proportionally large head.
His head is completely covered in thick, brown, hair, leaving only his nose visible. It's thus impossible to tell his mood or see his facial expressions.
Personality[]
As a nisse he distrusts all other Nisse, whom he considers liars. That was until after Hilda got him to meet Tontu (Beta).
Biography[]
Season 1[]
Before meeting Hilda, he lived in a yellow house near a duck pond. One day, however, The Black Hound entered the Nowhere Space of this house, and subsequently the house itself, and trashed both. Tontu was wrongfully accused for the mess by the house's owner, and banished.
Hilda first saw him in "Chapter 12: The Nisse", where he is homeless in the streets. Johanna forbade Hilda from talking to him, claiming Tontu must have been banished for a good reason. Hilda being Hilda, she tried to help him anyway by inviting him to come live in her house. Unfortunately, her house already had a Nisse and the two got in a fierce fight, that ended with an angry Johanna banishing Tontu from her home.
Later, while camping with the Sparrow Scouts, Hilda and David found Tontu in the Huldrawood. Hilda promised to bring him some snacks later, but never got the chance since she and David first ran into a group of Marra, and then got attacked by the Black Hound.
In "Chapter 13: The Black Hound", Hilda kept searching for Tontu, but first only encountered other Nisse. She also found the owner of the house that Tontu used to live in, who told her what Tontu had supposedly done. Shortly afterwards, she met Tontu again, who kept claiming to be innocent. He came with her to Scout Hall and checked out the Nowhere Space there, only to find the black hound.
The Black Hound chased Hilda and Tontu through Nowhere Space back to Hilda's house, where the other Tontu came to their aid. They recognized the Hound as their old pet Jellybean. When the Trolberg Safety Patrol arrived to capture Jellybean, the two Tontus set aside their distrust for each other, and cooperated with Hilda, and Johanna to lure Jellybean out of the city. This almost failed since Jellybean jumped on top of Johanna's car and caused it to go out of control. The only way the two nisse could prevent the car from crashing was by sending it into the Nowhere Space of the outside world. While there, Jellybean and his owner got separated from the others while the car with Tontu, Hilda, and Johanna emerged on the other side of the town wall.
Afterwards, Tontu went to live with Hilda and Johanna in the now vacant nowhere space of their house.
Season 2[]
In Season 2, he has become a valued member of the household; he has dinner with Johanna and Hilda, and offers Johanna the chance to use Nowhere Space as an extra storage. In "Chapter 5: The Windmill", he helps Hilda, Frida and David stop Victoria Van Gale's plan to open a breach to Nowhere Space. In "Chapter 6: The Old Bells of Trolberg", he participates in Hilda's plan to sabotage the new mechanical bell ringers, because their hourly ringing of the town bells even disturbs him in Nowhere Space. He helps Frida and Hilda get into the central bell tower after the Bragga Family has distracted the guards.
In Chapters 7 and 9 he only has a small appearance. In "Chapter 10: The Yule Lads", he once again allows Hilda and friends to use Nowhere Space in order to catch up with the Yule Lads, who are about to sacrifice Johanna, Trevor, and Trevor's mom to Gryla.
In "Chapter 13: The Stone Forest", after Hilda is send to her room by Johanna, Hilda blackmails him into helping her get to Frida's house by threatening to tell Johanna that Tontu broke her favorite bowl and hid the remains in his nest. Unfortunately, the attempt is interrupted by Johanna. Tontu tries to warn them that staying half in/half out of Nowhere space was dangerous, but too late; Hilda and Johanna get send to the Stone Forest, while Tontu ends up elsewhere in Trolberg. After a full day of being gone, during which he ends up in the harbor, the graveyard, and Jorts HQ, he finally manages to find his way back home, and tells Alfur where Hilda and Johanna are.
Movie[]
In The Movie, Tontu, upon seeing the now human Baba, deduces that a changeling spell was used and Hilda is now a troll. He accompanies Johanna on her first search for the now Troll Hilda, but they don't find her. When Johanna goes for another try, she leaves Baba at home under Tontu's care. Baba however quickly wanders out of the house and into the streets, forcing Tontu to follow her, using the Nowhere Space passages to keep up. They run into David and Frida, and Tontu tells them the whole story. He accompanies Johanna again on her third search, this time with Erik Ahlberg also tagging along. This time, they find Hilda. When Hilda and Baba are transformed back into their old selves, Hilda is left with no clothes and Baba tears up the clothes Johanna had given her, but Tontu fortunately reveals he brought a spare set of clothes along.
Season 3[]
In Season 3, Tontu accompanies Johanna, Hilda, Alfur, Frida and David when they go to Tofoten for a short vacation. While there, he acts like a typical tourist, taking photographs of everything. The vacation is cut short however when Johanna learns there is still a real Fairy Mound in Tofoten, and Hilda, David and Frida end up in Fairy Country because of it.
In "Chapter 5: The Job", Tontu meets Anders for the first time.
Tontu's biggest role in the season is in "Chapter 7: Strange Frequencies", when he and the other Nisse become even more hostile towards each other than usual, and start stealing each others stuff. Tontu tries to claim Hilda's radio for himself, which Hilda actually needs as the radio is picking up codes message that she believes to be from her father (who vanished at the end of "The Job"). Frida tries to diffuse the hostility between the Nisse and ropes Tontu, Hilda and David into a plan to organize a town hall meeting for all the Nisse. The meeting however goes sideways when Hilda and Tontu spot another nisse that stole their radio, and try to take it back, resulting in a huge fight between all the Nisse. Eventually, Hilda comes up with the plan to start a Lending Library for the Nisse so they can stop stealing from each other. At the end of the episode, when Hilda learns her father is with Victoria Van Gale in Fairy Country, Tontu helps her, Frida and David to secretly go to the train station so they can return to Tofoten and rescue Anders. When Johanna finds out what happened, she follows the three kids to Tofoten, but forbids Tontu and Alfur from coming along. Tontu is not seen again until the end of "Chapter 8: The Fairy Isle", where he is watching the Bird Parade.
Tontu is first seen in "Hilda and the Black Hound". His history, including his first meeting with Hilda, is largely identical to the animated series, except the main events happen in a different order; Tontu and Hilda first meet in the woods during the Sparrow Scouts camp, where Hilda gains Tontu's trust, and after that Hilda offered her own house to Tontu, only to find out another Nisse already lives there. Like in the animated series, Hilda eventually cleared Tontu's name, he and Jellybean's owner helped Jellybean escape the city, and he moved in with Hilda and Johanna after Jellybean and his owner got lost in Nowhere Space.
In "Hilda and the Stone Forest", which the events from the Seson 2 finale are adapted from, Tontu's role is largely identical to that of the animated adaptation. The differences are that in this version, Hilda blackmails him into helping her get to the roof of the house so she can see the fireworks of the Bird Parade, and after the incident that leads to Johanna and Hilda ending up in the Stone Forest, Tontu himself ends up in the bathroom of another house, where a man is just taking a shower. He later lies about this embarrassing event to Hilda and Johanna. He plays a larger role in the climax of the story, in which he comes to rescue Johanna and Hilda along with The Great Raven.
In "Hilda and the Mountain King", Tontu's role is largely identical to the movie, except the scene in which he has to chase Baba down the street does not happen in this story.
The events from "Chapter 12: The Nisse" and "Chapter 13: The Black Hound" are adapted into the book "Hilda and the Nowhere Space". Tontu's role in the story is mostly identical to the animated series, except he and Hilda have less scenes in which they interact. This includes Tontu finding the Scout Hall on his own instead of Hilda taking him there.
In the six books that follow, Tontu now lives with Hilda and Johanna, and serves as a supporting character. Like in the animated series, he participates in Hilda's plan to sabotage the mechanical bell ringers, helps her reach the Yule Lads after Johanna is abducted, assists in stopping Victoria van Gale's plan, and is blackmailed by Hilda into letting her use Nowhere Space after she is grounded, leading to the incident in which Hilda and Johanna are sent to the Stone Forest. The final three books that adapt season 3 split up the events from the final episodes, and make a few changes. The plot about the feuding Nisse and the creation of the Lending Library is incorporated into "Hilda and the Laughing Merman". This book also has Tontu give Hilda the pan pipes that Johanna later inadvertently uses to wake up the Spider Frog (in the series, Hilda found these pan pipes in Astrid's house). The plot about the trip to Tofoten and the radio signals is incorporated in to the final book, "Hilda and the Fairy Village". Here, Tontu picks up the signals from Anders and Victoria while he is listening to the radio in the Nowhere Space of the tent the others were using for a camping trip.Appearances[]
Graphic novels
Animated series
| Season 1 | ||||||||||||
| Hilda Opening Sequence: | Appears | |||||||||||
| 1. "The Hidden People": | Absent | 2. "The Midnight Giant": | Absent | |||||||||
| 3. "The Bird Parade": | Absent | 4. "The Sparrow Scouts": | Absent | |||||||||
| 5. "The Troll Rock": | Absent | 6. "The Nightmare Spirit": | Absent | |||||||||
| 7. "The Lost Clan": | Absent | 8. "The Tide Mice": | Absent | |||||||||
| 9. "The Ghost": | Absent | 10. "The Storm": | Absent | |||||||||
| 11. "The House in the Woods": | Absent | 12. "The Nisse": | Debut | |||||||||
| 13. "The Black Hound": | Appears | |||||||||||
| Season 2 | ||||||||||||
| Hilda Opening Sequence: | Absent | |||||||||||
| 1. Chapter 1: The Troll Circle: | Appears | 2. Chapter 2: The Draugen: | Absent | |||||||||
| 3. Chapter 3: The Witch: | Absent | 4. Chapter 4: The Eternal Warriors: | Absent | |||||||||
| 5. Chapter 5: The Windmill: | Appears | 6. Chapter 6: The Old Bells of Trolberg: | Appears | |||||||||
| 7. Chapter 7: The Beast of Cauldron Island: | Appears | 8. Chapter 8: The Fifty Year Night: | Absent | |||||||||
| 9. Chapter 9: The Deerfox: | Appears | 10. Chapter 10: The Yule Lads: | Appears | |||||||||
| 11. Chapter 11: The Jorts Incident: | Absent | 12. Chapter 12: The Replacement: | Absent | |||||||||
| 13. Chapter 13: The Stone Forest: | Appears | |||||||||||
| 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: | Absent | 4. Chapter 4: The Laughing Merman | Absent | |||||||||
| 5. Chapter 5: The Job: | Appears | 6. Chapter 6: The Forgotten Lake: | Appears | |||||||||
| 7. Chapter 7: Strange Frequencies: | Appears | 8. Chapter 8: The Fairy Isle: | Appears | |||||||||
Tie-in series
- Hilda and the Nowhere Space
- Hilda and the Time Worm
- Hilda and the Ghost Ship
- Hilda and the White Woff
- Hilda and the Laughing Merman
- Hilda and the Fairy Village
References