The Lord of the Rings: toughest quiz ever

Think you know Tolkien’s 1,000-page epic? Pit your wits against this quiz. BBC Arts Digital originally commissioned it from me in 2020 but I’ve now added a few more questions for good measure.

This website lacks the equipment for a fully interactive quiz, so I link the answers at the end of the quiz.

1. In early drafts, who were the hobbits going to encounter at the Prancing Pony rather than a Man called Strider?

1. An elf called Wanderer

2. A hobbit called Trotter

3. A dwarf called Plodder

2. How are Ents said to walk?

1. Like elms uprooting themselves

2. Like stiff-legged giants

3. Like wading herons

3. Who says this of Éowyn? ‘Who knows what she spoke to the darkness, alone, in the bitter watches of the night, when all her life seemed shrinking, and the walls of her bower closing in about her, a hutch to trammel some wild thing in?’

1. Aragorn

2. Gandalf

3. Wormtongue

4. How does Lobelia Sackville-Baggins attempt to smuggle several small (but rather valuable) items out of Bag End?

1. In the brim of her hat

2. Inside her umbrella

3. In her pocketses

5. Which of these invocations in Sindarin Elvish is used against the Wargs?

1. Le nallon sí di’nguruthos

2. Edro hi ammen

3. Naur dan i ngaurhoth

6. Who calls himself ‘Eldest’?

1. Tom Bombadil

2. Gandalf

3. Treebeard

7. Which of these things is not made of the wood of ‘the fair tree lebethron, beloved of the woodwrights of Gondor’?

1. The casket carrying the crown at Aragorn’s coronation

2. The staves given by Faramir to Frodo and Sam

3. The chair of the steward Denethor

8. What seems ‘riven from the bones of the earth in the ancient torment of the hills’.

1. Orodruin

2. Imladris

3. Orthanc

9. Whose emblem is the Ship and the Silver Swan?

1. Imrahil of Dol Amroth

2. Círdan of the Grey Havens

3. Celeborn of Lothlórien

10. What book did Tolkien want published simultaneously with The Lord of the Rings?

1. The Silmarillion

2. The Adventures of Tom Bombadil

3. The Hobbit

11. The guards of Minas Tirith laugh, and Pippin protests, when Gandalf calls him what?

1. Just a piece of luggage

2. Tom-fool of a Took

3. A very valiant Man

(Si apre in una nuova finestra)

12. On the way to Helm’s Deep, Aragorn and Legolas travel with Éomer in the

1. train

2. van

3. car

13. Where on the map of Middle-earth is the Isenmouthe?

1. Between the Mountains of Shadow and the Ashen Mountains

2. Between the mouths of the rivers Lefnui and Greyflood

3. In the Wizard’s Vale, overlooked by Orthanc

14. Who says, ‘Things will go as they will; and there is no need to hurry to meet them.’

1. Bilbo Baggins

2. Gaffer Gamgee

3. Treebeard

15. Which composer(s) worked with Tolkien setting songs from The Lord of the Rings to music?

1. Howard Shore

2. Donald Swann

3. Lennon & McCartney

16. Who tarried in Arvernien?

1. Malbeth the seer

2. Scatha the worm

3. Eärendil the mariner

17. When does Sam first mention how he longs to see Rosie Cotton again?

1. Leaving the Shire

2. On Mount Doom

3. Going into Moria

18. Who ‘shone like a window of glass upon a far hill in the westering sun, or as a remote lake seen from a mountain: a crystal fallen in the lap of the land’?

1. Goldberry

2. Nimrodel

3. Galadriel

19. What does Frodo say he wishes for at the Black Gate of Mordor?

1. A thousand oliphaunts with Gandalf on a white one at their head.

2. That the Ring had never, never, been found.

3. No killing.

20. Who talked about slipping off together and setting up somewhere on their own?

1. Merry and Pippin

2. Gorbag and Shagrat

3. Aragorn and Arwen

(Si apre in una nuova finestra)

21. Where are seen ‘shapes of Men and of horses, and pale banners like shreds of clouds, and spears like winter-thickets on a misty night’?

1. On the way to the Stone of Erech

2. At the Muster in Dunharrow

3. From Amon Hen, moving endlessly out of the East

22. Which of these makes Gollum scream in pain?

1. miruvor

2. hithlain

3. athelas

23. What was hot as a glede?

1. The Balrog’s whip

2. The Silmaril that Beren and Lúthien took from the iron crown of Morgoth

3. The Ring that Isildur cut from Sauron’s finger

24. Who says ‘You’ll get bed and breakfast all right: more than you can stomach.’

1. Boromir

2. Merry

3. Uglúk

25. What, according to Treebeard, was the old name of Lothlórien?

1. Laurelindórenan

2. Dwimordene

3. The Golden Wood

26. Who is both Aragorn’s direct ancestor and his grandfather-in-law?

1. Elros Tar-Minyatur

2. Eärendil the Mariner

3. Elrond the Half-elven

27. Who says of whom that ‘Faithful heart may have froward tongue’?

1. Théoden of Éomer

2. Faramir of Sam

3. Aragorn of Pippin

28. Which member of the Inklings rudely vetoed readings of The Lord of the Rings?

1. C.S. Lewis

2. Hugo Dyson

3. Owen Barfield

29. Which is the odd one out?

1. ghâsh

2. gorgûn

3. yrch

30. What is the Gaffer’s delight?

1. His large paternal word-hoard

2. Po – ta – toes

3. Ointment for creaking joints

Click here for the answers… (Si apre in una nuova finestra)

© John Garth, 2026. All rights reserved.