The Lord of the Rings: Toughest quiz ever – answers

Read no further unless you’ve tried the quiz I posted here (Abre numa nova janela).

(Abre numa nova janela)

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

2. A hobbit called Trotter

 2. How are Ents said to walk?

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?’

2. Gandalf (If you answered Wormtongue, you were thinking of the movies.)

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

2. Inside her umbrella.

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

3. Naur dan i ngaurhoth

6. Who calls himself ‘Eldest’?

1. Tom Bombadil

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

3. The chair of the steward Denethor – made of stone

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

3. Orthanc

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

1. Imrahil of Dol Amroth

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

1. The Silmarillion

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

3. A very valiant Man.

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

2. van. (This is the word used by Tolkien, short for vanguard.)

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

1. Between the Mountains of Shadow and the Ashen Mountains.

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

3. Treebeard

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

2. Donald Swann

16. Who tarried in Arvernien?

3. Eärendil the mariner

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

2. On Mount Doom

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’?

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.

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

2. Gorbag and Shagrat 

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. 

22. Which of these makes Gollum scream in pain?

2. hithlain

23. What was hot as a glede?

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.’

3. Uglúk

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

1. Laurelindórenan

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

2. Eärendil the Mariner

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

1. Théoden of Éomer

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

2. Hugo Dyson

29. Which is the odd one out?

1. ghâsh (Orkish for ‘fire’. The other two are the words for ‘orcs’ in the language of the Wild Men of Drúadan Forest and in Sindarin, respectively.)

30. What is the Gaffer’s delight?

2. Po – ta – toes

(Abre numa nova janela)

© John Garth, 2026. All rights reserved.