49 Fun Facts About Legolas

Legolas's royal line descends from which kindred of Elves?

Sindar. His grandfather came east from Doriath to rule the Silvan Wood-elves, which is why Legolas can speak of 'us of the silvan folk' while Tolkien called him of royal and originally Sindarin line.

Legolas first appears at the Council of Elrond carrying news of whose escape?

Gollum. Aragorn had caught him and the Wood-elves were his jailers, but they were too kind to keep him shut in the dark, and an Orc raid gave him the chance to slip away.

Which guard of Lothlórien's border challenges the Fellowship, leaving Legolas to answer for the company?

Haldir. He would let Gimli pass only blindfolded, the Dwarf refused, and the quarrel ended only when the whole Fellowship agreed to walk blindfolded, Legolas included, to the Elf's disgust.

On Caradhras, how does Legolas scout ahead while Aragorn and Boromir plough through the drifts?

He runs on top of the snow. Light-footed in mere shoes, he goes ahead and comes back to tell the labouring Men that the great drift barring their way is only a narrow wall.

Which Rider of Rohan lends Legolas the horse Arod, which he rides with Gimli seated behind him?

Éomer. Arod had lost his own rider in the fight with the Orcs, and letting three strangers ride off free broke the law of Rohan, which helped get Éomer arrested when he returned to Edoras.

In Moria, Legolas recognised "Durin's Bane" as what creature?

A Balrog. Legolas knew it at once, and Gandalf sent the others on while he held the Bridge of Khazad-dûm alone, breaking it under the creature before its whip dragged him down too.

Why does Legolas feel no fear on the Paths of the Dead, where even Gimli is terrified?

Mortal ghosts cannot frighten Elves. The shades of Men hold no terror for his kind, he says, while Gimli forces himself through the Dark Door only because he cannot bear to be outdone by an Elf underground.

What was Galadriel's own parting gift to Legolas as the Fellowship left Lothlórien?

A longbow. It was one of the Galadhrim's own, longer and stouter than the bows of his forest home, and it soon proved its worth, when Legolas loosed a single shot in the dark from the bank of the Great River.

On the Great River, what did Legolas bring down in the dark with a single arrow?

A Nazgûl's flying steed. In the dark nobody could tell what the dreadful winged shadow was; only when they met Gandalf again did Legolas learn that his arrow had unhorsed one of the Ringwraiths.

Hearing gulls at which port awoke Legolas's Sea-longing?

Pelargir. He heard the gulls as Aragorn's army of the Dead drove the Corsairs from their ships there, just as Galadriel had warned him: the cry of a gull would end his peace in the forest.

For an Elf such as Legolas, what is the Sea-longing a desire to do?

Sail west to Valinor. The longing sleeps in every Elf of Middle-earth, and once the gulls had woken it in Legolas it never left him, though he held out for more than a century after the war.

Legolas agreed to visit the Glittering Caves if Gimli would walk with him afterwards in which forest?

Fangorn. Neither relished the other's choice, an Elf under stone and a Dwarf among ancient trees, yet once the war was won they kept the bargain and made both journeys together.

After the war, Legolas settled Silvan Elves in which region of Gondor?

Ithilien. With Sauron gone, the borderland beside Mordor could be lived in again, and under the Elves' care it became once more 'the fairest country in all the westlands'.

After whose death did Legolas finally leave Middle-earth?

Aragorn's. He stayed for the whole of the King's long reign and went only when it ended, and the tale adds that he took Gimli with him, the one Dwarf ever said to have made that journey.

In which early Tolkien tale, begun around 1917, did an Elf named Legolas first appear?

The Fall of Gondolin. That Legolas is a different Elf, a keen-eyed scout who leads the city's survivors over the mountains by night; decades later Tolkien gave the name to a new character.

Which Old English poem do scholars hear in Legolas's lament for the vanished Elves of Hollin?

The Ruin. Its poet stands among fallen stone halls, perhaps Roman Bath, and mourns the builders, just as Legolas hears Hollin's stones say 'deep they delved us, fair they wrought us ... but they are gone'.

Legolas's line about Meduseld shining far over the land translates a line from which poem?

Beowulf. The borrowed line describes Heorot, the Danish king's gleaming hall, and Tolkien, an Oxford professor of Old English, modelled Rohan's golden hall and its challenging door-wardens on it.

Scholar Christina Scull calls the Legolas-Gimli friendship the greatest what in the book?

Reconciliation theme. The feud between their peoples was thousands of years old and the two begin the quest trading barbs, yet they end it inseparable, the Elf even conceding that the Dwarf has out-talked him.

Who voiced Legolas in Ralph Bakshi's 1978 animated film?

Anthony Daniels. Fresh from playing C-3PO in Star Wars, he voiced the Elf in a film that stops at Helm's Deep, halfway through the story, because its planned sequel was never made.

In the 1978 animated film, Legolas takes the place of which Elf on the road to Rivendell?

Glorfindel. In the book he puts Frodo on his own white horse for the race to the ford; Bakshi handed the part to Legolas, and Peter Jackson's film later gave it to Arwen.

Who voiced Frodo opposite David Collings's Legolas on BBC radio in 1981?

Ian Holm. Twenty years after voicing Frodo he joined Peter Jackson's films as the aged Bilbo, and his Sam on the radio was a young Bill Nighy, credited as William.

In The Two Towers film, Legolas cries that the Uruk-hai are taking the hobbits to which stronghold?

Isengard. In 2005 a Dutch musician looped the line over a techno remix of the film's score, and the two-minute video made Legolas's shout an internet catchphrase.

In which Hobbit film did Legolas first appear, despite being absent from the novel?

The Desolation of Smaug. The 1937 novel never mentions him, since Tolkien had yet to invent the character, but its Elvenking later became his father, which gave the films their opening.

In the Hobbit films, Legolas makes his entrance killing what in Mirkwood, before arresting the Dwarves?

Giant spiders. Bilbo has only just cut the Dwarves out of the webs when the Wood-elves sweep in, finish off the swarm and march the whole company to the Elvenking's halls as prisoners.

At the end of The Battle of the Five Armies, Thranduil sends Legolas to find a young Ranger called what?

Strider. The scene is the films' bridge to the later story: the Ranger is Aragorn, the man Legolas will follow across Middle-earth in The Lord of the Rings.

What does the name Legolas mean in Elvish?

Green leaf. That is why Galadriel's message can hail him as 'Legolas Greenleaf long under tree', using the translation as a second name; his father's name, Thranduil, means 'vigorous spring'.

After the war, Legolas's Elves and Gimli's Dwarves worked together to restore which battered city?

Minas Tirith. Gimli's Dwarves forged it new gates of mithril and steel and Legolas's Elves worked beside them, the old feud between their peoples turned into a building partnership.

Entering Lothlórien, Legolas sings part of the lay of which Elf-maiden, beside the stream that bears her name?

Nimrodel. She vanished on the road south and her lover Amroth drowned searching for her; Legolas sings only a part of the lay and stops, saying he has forgotten much of it.

In The Hobbit, what crown does the Elvenking wear in autumn?

Red leaves and berries. The woodland king changes his crown with the seasons, wearing woodland flowers in spring, and holds a carved oak staff where another king would have a sceptre.

How did Thorin's Dwarves escape Thranduil's dungeons?

Inside barrels. With the chief guard and the king's butler asleep over the wine, an invisible Bilbo packed the Dwarves into empty casks, and the Elves themselves then tipped them into the river.

Who plays Thranduil in Peter Jackson's Hobbit trilogy?

Lee Pace. Peter Jackson said he had been the first choice from the start: the filmmakers had wanted to work with him ever since seeing him in the 2006 fantasy The Fall.

In The Return of the King film, which beast does Legolas bring down single-handed on the Pelennor Fields?

An oliphaunt. Peter Jackson invented the stunt: nothing like it happens in Tolkien's book, which says little about what Legolas does in the battle.

How does Gimli's Orc-kill count compare with Legolas's at Helm's Deep?

One more. In the book Gimli ends on 42 to the Elf's 41, and his tally opened with two Orcs he felled to save a Rider's life outside the gates.

Gimli asked Galadriel for a single what, and received three?

Hair. Ages earlier she had refused a like request from Fëanor, maker of the Silmarils, yet she gave the Dwarf three strands, and later called him Lockbearer.

Gimli is the son of which member of Thorin's company?

Glóin. Father and son came to Elrond's council together, 77 years after Glóin had sat in the Elvenking's dungeons, which is why Gimli's first dealings with that king's son were so frosty.

After the Fellowship breaks up, Legolas, Aragorn and Gimli run for days across Rohan to rescue which two hobbits?

Merry and Pippin. The 'Three Hunters' never catch the Orcs: the hobbits free themselves when Riders of Rohan attack their captors, and the trail leads the hunters to a returned Gandalf instead.

Gimli became the first Lord of which realm after the war?

Aglarond. That is the Elvish name of the Glittering Caves behind Helm's Deep: Gimli had been so moved by them during the battle that he came back after the war with a colony of Dwarves.

In The Battle of the Five Armies, Legolas and Tauriel ride to which Orc fortress and find a second army?

Gundabad. They watch a host of Orcs and giant bats pour out of the northern fortress and race back to warn the Dwarves and their allies before it reaches the battle.

For which role did Orlando Bloom first audition before Peter Jackson cast him as Legolas?

Faramir. The part went to David Wenham, and Bloom came out ahead: Legolas is in all three films, while Faramir does not appear until the second.

How close to his 1999 drama-school graduation was Orlando Bloom cast as Legolas?

Two days. With his Guildhall course ending, he was handed only the second film role of his life, in the trilogy that made his name.

What injury did Orlando Bloom suffer when he fell from his horse while filming Legolas?

A broken rib. He still had to film the long run across Rohan, in pain beside two other injured cast members, a trio Peter Jackson nicknamed 'the Walking Wounded'.

Which word does Orlando Bloom have tattooed in Elvish script to remember playing Legolas?

Nine. It stands for the nine walkers of the Fellowship: as the long shoot ended, all but one of the actors who had played them marked it by getting the same Elvish design inked for good.

Which Fellowship actor skipped the shared tattoo, leaving it to his stunt double?

John Rhys-Davies. The actor behind Gimli declined, and his stunt double Brett Beattie, who had taken many of the Dwarf's knocks on set, went under the needle in his place.

Orlando Bloom's only film role before Legolas was a brief part in a 1997 biopic of which writer?

Oscar Wilde. In Wilde, with Stephen Fry in the title role, the young Bloom had one brief scene as a rent boy, then turned his back on film work and went to drama school.

Which Ridley Scott war film did Orlando Bloom make while he was also playing Legolas?

Black Hawk Down. He plays Todd Blackburn, the eighteen-year-old Ranger whose fall from a helicopter during the raid on Mogadishu forces part of the convoy to turn back with him.

Who plays Tauriel, the Elf invented for the Hobbit films?

Evangeline Lilly. Tauriel was written to bring another woman into an almost all-male story, and the part went to an actress who had been reading Tolkien since she was thirteen.

What post does Tauriel hold in the Elvenking's realm in the Hobbit films?

Captain of the guard. The filmmakers gave her that rank and a name translated as 'daughter of the forest', yet made her a Silvan Elf, of far humbler birth than the prince who admires her.

Which Dwarf does Tauriel form a romantic bond with in the Hobbit films?

Kíli. She heals his poisoned wound in Lake-town, he later tells her that he loves her, and in the final battle he is killed coming to her aid.

Which Orc chieftain does Legolas kill in single combat at the climax of The Battle of the Five Armies?

Bolg. The film gives Azog's son a duel with Legolas among the ruins of Ravenhill; in Tolkien's book he is crushed by Beorn, who arrives in the shape of a great bear.