This Unnamed Nisse was created by Victoria Van Gale. He first appears in the Season 2 episode "Chapter 5: The Windmill", as well as this episode's adaptation "Hilda and the Ghost Ship".
Appearance[]
In many ways, this nisse resembles Tontu, a fact also acknowledged by Hilda. He has a head full of moss that leaves only his nose (which appears to be a beet) visible. His body, however, is not flesh and blood, but made from several materials, like a wooden torso. Underneath his face, he has a skull.
He can crawl on walls and, according to the tie-in novel, is quite strong for his size.
When this nisse was ultimately restored, he looked mainly normal and wore a green sweater.
Personality[]
The nisse was made to serve Victoria van Gale. He never talks, and does everything she tells him to. He can be quite sneaky and creep people out.
Although in the novelization he can make certain noises, like clearing his throat.
Biography[]
Victoria brings her Nisse to life.
After the destruction of her Weather Station, Victoria van Gale moved into the old windmill outside Trolberg, and got the idea to find a way for people to reach Nowhere Space so they could use it for more homes. Since only Nisse could enter Nowhere Space (and because she could use an assistant), she artificially created one out of various materials, and used dangerous, old magic to bring him to life so he would have the powers of an actual Nisse.
When Frida, Hilda, and David found Victoria at the windmill, David in particular quickly developed an enmity with the Nisse. When Hilda told Tontu about the Nisse, he too was unnerved to hear that Victoria made a Nisse from scratch. While the Nisse proved himself helpful, he also spied on Hilda for Victoria, and when David discovered some secret documents and took them home, the Nisse followed him there to steal them back.
When Victoria puts her plan in motion, she uses the Nisse to power up a machine that can open a breach to Nowhere Space. David, Frida, and Hilda interfered. David fought the Nisse one more time, and in the fight managed to pull it's face off, revealing the skull underneath. Frida then kicked the Nisse into the breach. The final shot of the episode showed Victoria stranded in an unknown location, with the skull of her Nisse as her only company.
In "Chapter 8: The Fairy Isle", it is revealed that Victoria van Gale had ended up on one of the outer islands of Fairy Country. Hilda meets her when she too travels there. Victoria still has the skull of her Nisse, who is revealed to be still alive despite the loss of his body. At the end of the episode, after Victoria cuts a deal with The Fairy Entity to stay on Fairy Isle forever in exchange of allowing Astrid to be spared, she has somehow managed to rebuild the nisse's body. They are last seen looking out over the isle together.
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- In the novelization Hilda and the Ghost Ship, David gives the nisse the name Moss Head Fred, or just Fred for short. He is the only one who uses this name. Afterwards in Hilda and the Fairy Village, as a skull, Hilda names the nisse Bone Head Fred.
- One other difference is that in the novel, it is David who gets captured by Victoria, and Frida who fights, and eventually defeats, the Nisse.
- Luke Pearson referred to the Nisse as "the franken-nisse". Early concept art he made for the character involved it having a bandaged, bleeding stump for a foot.[1]
References