Noddle-Pete

Noddle-Pete, the old, toothless robber in Matt’s band, is at once a keeper of its traditions and one of the clearest voices against the future those traditions promise. He waits eagerly for Ronia’s birth, holds her as the imagined next robber chief, and later hears her refuse that calling because robbery harms people. His affectionate teasing and loyalty to Matt sit beside a sharper understanding of the danger facing the divided bands; near the end, he advises reconciliation and quietly affirms Ronia’s independent moral judgment. His death closes the life of someone who has been present in Matt’s for as long as Matt can remember.

Identity and Place in Matt’s Band

At the beginning of Ronia’s life, Noddle-Pete is an old robber with a bald head, a toothless smile, and a past spent in the woods. He is not merely one of the men gathered in Matt’s Fort: he is Matt’s longtime companion, a familiar presence whose bond with the chief is measured in a shared lifetime. The other robbers look to the birth of Matt’s child as an occasion for the whole band, but Noddle-Pete is waiting most keenly. He hopes to see a new robber chief before his own robbing days end, placing the group’s future and his own approaching old age in the same frame.

That hope is playful, but it is also an expression of the world he inhabits. When Matt rushes into the hall overcome with joy, Noddle-Pete asks to hold the child. Matt lays Ronia in his arms as if she were a golden egg, and announces her as the new chieftain the old robber has been anticipating. Noddle-Pete raises and lowers the infant gently, surprised by how little she weighs. The scene makes him an early witness to Matt’s paternal love as well as to the expectation that Ronia will inherit the band’s life.

Humor, Age, and Loyalty

Noddle-Pete’s humor often turns on his age. As the robbers consider how to stop soldiers approaching Matt’s Fort, he echoes Matt’s ominous assurance that there are other ways to defend the Wolf’s Neck, then jokes that he has caught many wolves there but is now too old to catch anything but his own fleas. The boast and the self-mockery coexist: he remembers himself as capable, while acknowledging that his body and working life have diminished.

He remains active in the band’s domestic life. When Matt needs someone skilled with shears to deal with a wild goat, Noddle-Pete volunteers, citing his experience clipping sheep and lambs. Yet he refuses to have his own two tufts of hair touched, saying he will soon be under the ground and has no need for unnecessary fuss. Matt answers by flinging his arms around him and lifting him from the floor, forbidding him to talk of dying: Matt has not lived a day of his earthly life without him, he says, and Noddle-Pete cannot simply die behind his back. Noddle-Pete’s pleased response shows the affection beneath their rough banter; Matt’s outburst makes plain how much the old man’s presence anchors him.

Witness to Ronia’s Moral Refusal

Noddle-Pete is present when Ronia first learns what the robbers’ work entails. After Matt explains that a robber takes things without asking or permission, the old man ignores Matt’s attempt to send him to bed because he wants to hear the conversation. Ronia understands that the goods carried home in sacks, bundles, chests, and boxes do not come from the forest: her father takes them from other people. She asks whether those people become terribly angry. Noddle-Pete confirms that they do, and later describes their howling, crying, and swearing as something the robbers enjoy hearing.

His amusement throws the ethical difference between the robbers and Ronia into relief. Matt invokes his robber ancestors and expects his daughter to become a chieftain too; Ronia answers that she will never do so, even if the people robbed become angry and cry. Noddle-Pete hears this refusal at close range. He does not prevent Matt from defending the family trade, but his presence makes him a witness to the moment when inherited identity fails to persuade Ronia. The contrast is especially clear later, when Ronia tells Matt that he may rob money and goods, but not people, or she will no longer want to be his daughter. Her loyalty to her father has not erased her attention to those who suffer from his actions.

When Matt’s relationship with Ronia breaks down, Noddle-Pete’s concern extends to both of them. After Ronia returns alive but withdraws silently behind the curtains of her bed, he tells Lovis that there is nothing but misery in Matt’s Fort. Matt is in Noddle-Pete’s bedroom, lying without speaking and refusing to get up or eat. The old man asks what they can do; Lovis says that Matt will come when he is hungry enough, though she too is worried. Noddle-Pete’s room becomes a refuge for the stricken chief, and his report conveys the household consequences of the rupture without making him its cause or its cure.

Counsel Amid the Feud

As the sheriff’s soldiers increase their pressure on the woods, Noddle-Pete repeatedly argues that Matt and Borka must reconcile. Two rival bands, he reasons, spend their strength deceiving one another and fighting over plunder; a single strong band would have a better chance of dealing with the sheriff and his men. Matt resists not because he cannot see the practical point, but because a united band raises the question of who would lead it. He insists on his position as the mightiest robber chief and doubts that Borka would accept it.

Noddle-Pete’s proposed solution is a single combat: Matt should defeat Borka and thereby make him reasonable, after which the robbers could unite in Matt’s Fort and misdirect the soldiers until the hunt grew tiresome. The plan is tactical rather than moral; it seeks to preserve the robber life by making its practitioners more effective. Ronia supplies the more radical answer. She says the most cunning idea would be to stop robbing altogether, as she has always believed. Noddle-Pete smiles at her and agrees that she is right, while admitting that he is too old and feeble to drum the idea into Matt’s skull. His exchange with Ronia marks a quiet shift: the veteran who once looked forward to her as a robber successor now recognizes the force of her refusal.

Private Past and Death

Near the end of his life, Noddle-Pete tells Ronia that it soothes his old heart that she and Birk do not want to become robbers. He does not pretend the work was never pleasurable, but says it has grown harder and that a robber can be hanged before knowing it. Ronia explains that she could not bear hearing people scream and sob when their belongings were taken. Noddle-Pete agrees that she could not bear it either, then offers her a secret, asking her not to tell anyone except one person.

Taking Ronia’s warm hands to warm his own cold ones, he recounts that, when he was young and spent his time in the woods, he saved a little gray dwarf from harpies intent on tearing it to pieces. He calls gray dwarfs riffraff but says this one was different and so grateful that he could scarcely get rid of him. Noddle-Pete begins to disclose what the dwarf insisted on giving him, but Matt appears at the doorway before he can finish aloud. When Ronia insists on hearing the rest, Noddle-Pete whispers it to her. The narrative does not disclose the secret’s content here; what it does establish is that the old robber’s past contains an act of rescue and a private confidence entrusted to Ronia.

Noddle-Pete grows steadily weaker. One night, Matt, Lovis, Ronia, and the robbers keep watch as he lies motionless with his eyes closed. Unable to see signs of life in the shadowed bed, Matt cries that he is dead. Noddle-Pete opens one eye to rebuke him: he would have the manners to say goodbye before leaving. After a long silence broken by a few wheezing breaths, he opens his eyes again, takes leave of his friends, and dies. Ronia cries; having never seen anyone die, she comforts herself with the thought that he had been tired and might now rest somewhere unknown to her. Matt instead walks through the stone hall weeping and shouting that Noddle-Pete had always been there and now is not. The ending turns their long companionship into absence, while confirming the old man’s place at the heart of Matt’s household.