100 Fun Facts About The Hobbit

After The Hobbit's success, which Tolkien manuscript did Allen & Unwin reject while asking him for a sequel?

The Silmarillion drafts were turned down and the firm asked again for a Hobbit sequel, so Tolkien began 'The New Hobbit', which grew into The Lord of the Rings.

Whose favourable report persuaded Allen & Unwin to publish The Hobbit?

The publisher's 10-year-old son, Rayner Unwin, later championed The Lord of the Rings, which the firm published despite expecting to lose £1,000.

Where did Tolkien say he wrote 'In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit'?

On a blank exam page: marking School Certificate papers, Tolkien found one a candidate had left empty, and the line he scribbled there grew into a whole story.

Which two dwarves in Thorin's company are his sister's sons and its youngest members?

Fili and Kili, as the youngest, had the sharpest eyes, so the company relied on them as lookouts.

What role does Gandalf propose that Bilbo fill on the expedition?

Burglar: holding that job, Bilbo was the one the dwarves sent, reluctant, into the dragon's lair inside the mountain.

Which dwarf of Thorin's company is the father of Gimli from The Lord of the Rings?

Gloin openly doubted Bilbo when the quest began, yet the hobbit went on to rescue the dwarves more than once.

The dwarves' lost kingdom under the Lonely Mountain is called what?

Erebor fell when Smaug descended on it in King Thror's reign, driving the dwarves into exile; Thror's grandson Thorin leads the quest to win it back.

When three trolls capture Thorin's company and argue over cooking them, what becomes of the trolls?

They turn to stone at dawn: Gandalf mimicked the trolls' voices to keep them quarrelling until the sun came up.

Where does Elrond reveal further secrets hidden in Thror's map?

Rivendell: Elrond read moon-letters on the map there, revealing that the mountain's secret door could be opened only on Durin's Day.

Lost in the goblin tunnels, Bilbo plays what kind of game with Gollum, his life at stake?

A riddle contest: Bilbo's last question, 'What have I got in my pocket?', stumped Gollum, who realised the answer only when he found his ring gone.

In the first edition of The Hobbit, what did Gollum do after losing to Bilbo?

Showed him the way out: once Gollum's ring became the One Ring of The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien revised the chapter so that Gollum turns murderous instead.

Which hobbit family, known for its adventurous streak, was Bilbo's mother born into?

The Tooks: Bilbo's mother, Belladonna Took, was well known to Gandalf, the wizard who set up the party that sent her stay-at-home son off with the dwarves.

What was Gollum's name before the ring corrupted him?

Sméagol strangled his relative Déagol, who had found the ring while they were fishing, after demanding it as a birthday present.

Into what animal can the skin-changer who shelters Thorin's company transform?

A great black bear: the skin-changer was no friend of dwarves, but Gandalf's story humoured him into hosting them, and he went out to check the tale before trusting them.

Which dwarf falls into Mirkwood's enchanted river and must be carried, unconscious, for days?

Bombur was knocked into the enchanted stream by a charging deer, and he slept for days dreaming of Elvish feasts, waking with no memory of the journey.

Before evil fell upon it, the forest of Mirkwood had been known by what name?

Greenwood the Great was renamed again once the One Ring was destroyed: cleansed of darkness, it became Eryn Lasgalen, the Wood of Greenleaves.

After saving the dwarves from giant spiders, Bilbo must rescue them again from whose dungeons?

The Wood-elves had jailed the dwarves, so Bilbo, invisible, stole the drunken jailer's keys and floated his friends out in empty wine barrels.

What does Bilbo name his elvish blade after using it to fight off the Mirkwood spiders?

Sting: Bilbo named the blade after killing a giant spider alone in the dark, then used the ring and taunting songs to lure the others away from the dwarves.

How does Bard learn about the gap in Smaug's armour?

A thrush tells him: the bird had overheard Bilbo describe the weak spot under Smaug's left breast, and Bard, being of the race of Dale, understood its speech.

Bard kills Smaug with a family heirloom called what?

The Black Arrow had come to Bard from his father, and it was the last arrow left in his quiver when he shot Smaug above Lake-town.

Tolkien called the dragon's name 'a low philological jest', the past tense of a verb meaning what?

To squeeze through a hole: Tolkien said in a 1938 letter that the dragon bears his name only as a pseudonym, taken from the old Germanic verb smúgan.

Which heirloom jewel of Thorin's family does Bilbo secretly hand to the besiegers to prevent a war?

The Arkenstone was the treasure Thorin prized above all, so when he learned Bilbo had handed it over as a bargaining chip, he furiously drove the hobbit away.

Whose army arrives from the Iron Hills to reinforce Thorin just before the Battle of Five Armies?

Dain's troops nearly started a war with the elves and men, until goblins and wolves attacked and all three sides joined forces against them.

In Tolkien's novel The Hobbit, who kills the goblin leader Bolg at the Battle of Five Armies?

Beorn's charge turns the battle; Thorin is fatally wounded and reconciles with Bilbo before he dies.

Which sword was laid upon Thorin's tomb after he fell in battle?

Orcrist, the elven blade Thorin had found in the trolls' hoard, gleamed in the dark whenever foes approached, so the dwarves could never be taken by surprise.

Tolkien took Gandalf's name and most of the dwarves' names from which Old Norse poem?

Völuspá, a poem of the Poetic Edda, even gave Tolkien Thorin's epithet: its roll of dwarves includes Eikinskjaldi, meaning Oakenshield.

When Bilbo finally gets home, what does he find happening at Bag End?

His possessions being auctioned off meant Bilbo, legally presumed dead, had to buy back much of his own furniture.

Which prize did The Hobbit win from the New York Herald Tribune?

Best juvenile fiction was the American prize, but Britain's Carnegie Medal for 1937 went instead to Eve Garnett's The Family from One End Street.

Which colour did the publisher cut from Tolkien's own dust-jacket design for The Hobbit to save money?

Red: Tolkien gave his sky a red sun and a red dragon, but a fourth ink cost too much, and the words 'Ignore red' were written in the margin of his artwork.

Despite strong early sales, what often kept The Hobbit out of British bookshops in the decade after it appeared?

Paper rationing made wartime reprints so difficult that the 1942 printing went ahead with help from Foyle's children's book club and kept at most one of its colour plates.

Which gift from Thorin to Bilbo, taken from the dragon's hoard, later saves Frodo's life in Moria?

A mithril coat: Bilbo lent it to the Mathom-house, a hobbit museum, but took it back before leaving the Shire and later passed it on to Frodo.

Which studio, known for Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, made the 1977 animated Hobbit?

Rankin/Bass followed it in 1980 with an animated Return of the King, later sold on DVD in a three-film set with Ralph Bakshi's unrelated 1978 Lord of the Rings.

The Japanese firm that animated the 1977 Hobbit went bankrupt, and its founder and many of its animators joined which new company?

Studio Ghibli was founded in 1985 after the success of Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, which Topcraft had animated; the bankrupt firm's founder, Toru Hara, became Ghibli's first manager.

In Peter Jackson's Hobbit films, who plays Bilbo on his adventure with the dwarves?

Martin Freeman's Bilbo faces a dragon voiced by his Sherlock co-star Benedict Cumberbatch, so TV's Watson and Holmes meet again as hobbit and Smaug.

Which director was originally attached to the Hobbit films before leaving over delays in 2010?

Guillermo del Toro left after two years of preparation as MGM's financial troubles stalled filming, yet he is still credited as a co-writer on all three films.

In the Hobbit films, Benedict Cumberbatch played Smaug and which other character, both via motion capture?

The Necromancer turns out to be Sauron, so Cumberbatch voiced both the dragon and the Dark Lord who later hunts the One Ring.

Which comedian played the greedy Master of Lake-town in Peter Jackson's Hobbit films?

Stephen Fry's Master is crushed by the dragon's falling body, but in the book the Master runs off with the town's gold and starves in the wild.

Why is the elf Tauriel, played by Evangeline Lilly, notable in Jackson's Hobbit films?

She was invented for the screen, and the young dwarf she falls for dies saving her life in the final battle.

Under what title was the third Hobbit film announced before being renamed The Battle of the Five Armies?

There and Back Again stopped fitting once the story became a trilogy, Jackson said, because Bilbo has already arrived 'there' in the second film.

Which Lord of the Rings actor returns as Legolas in the Hobbit films, though Legolas never appears in the book?

Orlando Bloom's elf has a family tie to the story after all: Tolkien later made Legolas the son of Thranduil, played in the films by Lee Pace.

The first film premiered on 28 November 2012 in which city, with 100,000 people lining the red carpet?

The Embassy Theatre event was broadcast live across New Zealand; the second film premiered in Los Angeles and the third in London.

The permanent Hobbiton set that tourists visit is on a working farm near which New Zealand town?

Matamata's Hobbiton set was partly torn down after The Lord of the Rings, but the leftover facades drew tours from 2002, and it was rebuilt to last for The Hobbit.

Which pop star contributed the song 'I See Fire' to The Desolation of Smaug?

Ed Sheeran was suggested by Jackson's daughter Katie, and though he had never played the violin, he overdubbed a violin part on the song himself.

During the 2020 lockdown, which actor read the entire Hobbit aloud online for charity?

More than 650,000 people tuned in as Andy Serkis read the whole book live, and the stream raised more than £283,000 for NHS Charities Together and a baby charity.

In The Hobbit, Bilbo's relative Bullroarer is said to have invented which game by knocking off a goblin chief's head?

Golf: in Tolkien's tongue-in-cheek tale, the goblin chief's head sails through the air and lands down a rabbit-hole.

Which medieval classic did Tolkien count among his 'most valued sources' for The Hobbit?

Beowulf's dragon is enraged when a thief takes a golden cup from its hoard, just as Bilbo's stolen cup rouses Smaug.

Tolkien's wizard Radagast shares his name with a god recorded in which mythology?

Medieval chroniclers recorded a Slavic god Radegast at the temple of Rethra, though Tolkien himself later called his wizard's name not now clearly interpretable.

When goblins and wolves trap Thorin's company up in burning trees, who rescues them?

The eagles, enemies of the goblins, arrived as the trees caught fire, and their lord snatched Gandalf just as his own tree went up in flames.

The first Hobbit film, a 12-minute short, was rushed out so its producer could do what?

Keep the film rights: they were a month from lapsing, so Gene Deitch condensed the story into one reel, and the producer screened it to a handful of passers-by in Manhattan.

Tolkien wrote The Hobbit while he was a professor at which university?

Oxford: the story he had written for his own children reached Susan Dagnall of the publisher Allen & Unwin in 1936, and she persuaded him to submit it.

Which business magazine ranked the dragon Smaug among the world's richest fictional characters?

Forbes put Smaug at number one on its 2012 Fictional 15 list, valuing the dragon's hoard at $62 billion.

In Tolkien's novel The Hobbit, how does Bilbo spend the final stage of the Battle of Five Armies?

Knocked unconscious by a falling stone, Bilbo wakes after the fighting is over and has to be told how the battle ended.

Which American late-night host has a cameo as a Lake-town spy in The Desolation of Smaug?

Stephen Colbert shares the cameo with members of his own family, who appear beside him as spies in the town.

Which actor shot his Hobbit scenes as Saruman in England, being unable to travel to New Zealand?

Christopher Lee filmed every one of his scenes at England's Pinewood Studios in 2011, when he was 89 years old.

Critics read The Hobbit as shaped by which conflict, where Tolkien served as a signals officer?

The First World War took Tolkien to the Somme in 1916, and critics see Bilbo, plucked from a rural home and thrown into a far-off war, as his answer to it.

Tolkien borrowed the name of Bilbo's home, Bag End, from which real place in Worcestershire?

His aunt's farmhouse, the home of Jane Neave in the village of Dormston, was really called Bag End and stood at the bottom of a lane with no exit.

Which former Doctor Who star plays the wizard Radagast the Brown in Peter Jackson's Hobbit films?

Sylvester McCoy had earlier been kept waiting for six months as a possible Bilbo for The Lord of the Rings before the part went to Ian Holm.

Peter Jackson's cameo in The Desolation of Smaug repeats which action from The Fellowship of the Ring?

Eating a carrot in the village of Bree, Jackson reprises the walk-on part he played twelve years earlier in his first Middle-earth film.

Which character absent from Tolkien's novel does Cate Blanchett play in the Hobbit films?

Galadriel was the first returning Lord of the Rings role that Jackson cast for the Hobbit films, even though Tolkien's book never mentions her.

In The Hobbit, what does Bilbo steal on his first trip into the dragon Smaug's lair?

A two-handled cup is all he takes, yet Smaug knows his hoard to the ounce, so he notices the loss the moment he wakes.

Which Star Trek actor recorded a 1967 novelty song retelling Bilbo's adventures in The Hobbit?

Leonard Nimoy mimed the song on a beach for a TV variety show, still in his Spock haircut, among dancers wearing plastic pointed ears.

Which small extinct human species, found on an Indonesian island, is nicknamed the Hobbit?

Homo floresiensis stood only about 1.1 metres tall and lived on the island of Flores until roughly 50,000 years ago.

Which Finnish artist illustrated a 1962 Swedish edition of The Hobbit at Astrid Lindgren's request?

Tove Jansson, creator of the Moomins, drew pictures that reviewers admired, yet the edition then went unreprinted for many years.

In The Hobbit, what does Bilbo pack the dwarves inside to float them downriver to Lake-town?

Empty barrels carry the dwarves downstream, while Bilbo himself has to cling to the outside of one, invisible, cold and wet.

In Peter Jackson's Hobbit films, what animals pull the sled of the wizard Radagast the Brown?

Giant rabbits haul the sled in an idea invented entirely for the films; Tolkien's books never give the wizard any such transport.

Which mountain range is Thorin's company crossing in The Hobbit when goblins drag them underground?

The Misty Mountains hide a goblin stronghold, and it is while fleeing through its tunnels that Bilbo gets separated from the others and stumbles on a mysterious ring.

Which friend of Tolkien read The Hobbit in manuscript and then praised it in a review for The Times?

C. S. Lewis, later the author of the Narnia books, likened The Hobbit to Alice in Wonderland as a story that children and adults enjoy for different reasons.

Which actor makes a brief return as Frodo in the first Hobbit film, An Unexpected Journey?

Elijah Wood appears in a framing story in which Bilbo, about to turn 111, writes down his adventure for his nephew.

Which composer scored all three Hobbit films, having already scored The Lord of the Rings trilogy?

Howard Shore recorded the first score with the London Philharmonic, then switched to the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra for the two sequels.

The three trolls who capture the dwarves in The Hobbit speak with which working-class English accent?

Cockney accents and the plain names Tom, Bert and William make the trolls comic rather than terrifying, with vulgar table manners and constant squabbling.

What name does The Hobbit give the evil wolves that hunt alongside the goblins?

Wargs get their name from Old Norse vargr, a common word for wolf, blended with an Old English cousin that meant an outlaw.

What was unusual about how Peter Jackson shot the Hobbit films, a choice that drew a mixed response?

Twice the usual frame rate meant 48 frames per second instead of 24; critics noted the added immediacy but felt the cinematic glow was lost.

Which Welsh actor plays Bard the Bowman, the man who kills Smaug, in Peter Jackson's Hobbit films?

Luke Evans also plays Girion, the ancestor of Bard whose city the dragon destroyed.

Which actor, once an elf in a stage Hobbit, plays Thorin Oakenshield in Peter Jackson's films?

Richard Armitage was announced as the dwarf king in October 2010 and had to give up a second series of the TV thriller Strike Back to take the part.

Which veteran comedian plays the Great Goblin by motion capture in The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey?

Barry Humphries, best known as Dame Edna Everage, travelled to New Zealand in 2011 to perform the goblin ruler himself instead of only lending a voice.

What is the title of The Hobbit's opening chapter, in which the dwarves arrive at Bag End?

An Unexpected Party gave Tolkien a joke to come back to, since The Lord of the Rings opens with a chapter whose title turns it inside out.

Which talking birds, led by the ancient Roäc, bring Thorin the news that the dragon Smaug is dead?

Ravens had been allies of the dwarves before the dragon came, and Roäc, by then 153 years old, descended from those that never left the hill.

Tolkien wrote The Hobbit while holding the Rawlinson and Bosworth professorship in which subject?

Anglo-Saxon was his chair for twenty years, from 1925 to 1945, and he liked to open a lecture series by suddenly declaiming the old poetry at full volume.

Which French author's 1864 novel shares a hidden runic message and other parallels with The Hobbit?

Jules Verne's Journey to the Center of the Earth also uses a celestial alignment to direct its adventurers to the goal of their quest.

In The Hobbit, the last sunlight of which day reveals the keyhole of the Lonely Mountain's secret door?

Durin's Day comes only when the last moon of autumn and the sun can be seen in the sky together, so the dwarves cannot count on it every year.

Which sword, called Beater by the goblins, does Gandalf take from the trolls' hoard in The Hobbit?

Glamdring means Foe-hammer in Elvish, and long before the wizard found it the blade had belonged to Turgon, king of the hidden city of Gondolin.

Which Lord of the Rings actor wrote and sang The Last Goodbye for the final Hobbit film?

Billy Boyd, who played the hobbit Pippin, sings it over the end credits of The Battle of the Five Armies, the last of Peter Jackson's six Middle-earth films.

Which Hollywood director of The Maltese Falcon voiced Gandalf in the 1977 animated film of The Hobbit?

John Huston also narrated the film, and he was not its only famous director: Otto Preminger voiced the Elvenking.

Tolkien labelled which keepsake, a picture of a mountain spirit, as the origin of Gandalf?

A postcard of the painting Der Berggeist was the keepsake; Tolkien recalled buying it on a Swiss holiday in 1911, though his biographer thought he was probably mistaken about where it came from.

Fans mark Hobbit Day each 22 September because the date is what in Tolkien's stories?

Bilbo and Frodo's birthday falls on the same date decades apart, and by a near miss The Hobbit itself was first published on 21 September.

Where on the dragon Smaug's jewel-crusted body does Bilbo spot the bare patch that proves fatal?

His left breast has a bare hollow among the gems stuck to his underside, and that is exactly where the arrow that kills him later strikes.

What can still give away a wearer of the ring Bilbo finds in The Hobbit?

A faint shadow, thin and shaky, is the only trace, and only the brightest sunlight shows it. Beings able to perceive the unseen world are the other exception.

The Hobbit, a 1982 home-computer hit sold with a copy of the novel in the box, was what kind of game?

A text adventure with illustrated locations, it first ran on the ZX Spectrum and sold over 100,000 copies in its first two years.

Which American actor plays the Elvenking, who rides a giant elk, in Peter Jackson's Hobbit films?

Lee Pace rode a horse named Moose, made up to look like a deer; the filmmakers had wanted him ever since his role in the 2006 film The Fall.

Gandalf leaves Thorin's company at the edge of Mirkwood to help drive a sorcerer from which fortress?

Dol Guldur means Hill of Sorcery, and its master turns out to be Sauron himself, the great enemy of The Lord of the Rings.

What is the proper name of Lake-town, the trading settlement of Men built out over the Long Lake?

Esgaroth stands on wooden pillars sunk into the lake-bed and is led by an elected Master instead of a king.

Which name does The Lord of the Rings give the Elvenking, who goes unnamed in The Hobbit?

Thranduil means vigorous spring in Elvish, and The Hobbit gives him a crown of leaves and berries in autumn and one of flowers in spring.

Which Victorian novelist put a forest called Mirkwood in his 1889 fantasy?

William Morris named the forest in The House of the Wolfings, a book Tolkien cited as an influence; the word goes back to Myrkviðr in Norse myth.

In Tolkien's early drafts of The Hobbit, which name did the wizard bear before he became Gandalf?

Bladorthin was the wizard in those drafts, while the name Gandalf belonged to the chief dwarf, the character who later became Thorin Oakenshield.

What is the first name of Bilbo's father, the well-to-do hobbit who built the luxurious Bag End?

Bungo dug out Bag End in the Hill at Hobbiton; Drogo, the tempting wrong guess, was the father of Frodo instead.

Soon after publication, The Hobbit was nominated for which British prize for children's books?

The Carnegie Medal was only in its second year, and the judges gave it to Eve Garnett's The Family from One End Street instead.

Which Hollywood studio's financial troubles stalled the Hobbit films in 2010 before shooting began?

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer held part of the rights through United Artists, and no start date could be set until its money problems were resolved; cameras finally rolled in March 2011.

Which New Zealand singer-songwriter performed the end-credits song of the first Hobbit film?

Neil Finn, the lead singer of Crowded House, recorded Song of the Lonely Mountain with his own sons and the London Metropolitan Orchestra.

Tolkien's invented etymology derives the word hobbit from holbytla, an old-sounding word meaning what?

Hole-builder is the meaning Tolkien gave in an appendix to The Lord of the Rings; he coined the word himself from Old English hol, a hollow, and bytlan, to build.

Which orc leader, played by Manu Bennett, do Peter Jackson's Hobbit films add as Thorin's arch-enemy?

Azog gives the films a villain that the book's quest lacks, and the same adaptation also invents an old feud between the dwarf leader and the Elvenking.