The Fellowship of the Ring Trivia
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49 free The Fellowship of the Ring trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
The Fellowship of the Ring is the first volume of The Lord of the Rings, published in July 1954 with a prologue on hobbits and two 'books' that carry Frodo from Bilbo's eleventy-first birthday party to the breaking of the company at Amon Hen. Forty-seven years later Peter Jackson's film version opened in London and went on to thirteen Oscar nominations, four wins and a place on the National Film Registry. This quiz covers both. From the novel: Farmer Maggot, Old Man Willow, the barrow-wight's swords, the herb Strider uses on Weathertop, the Redhorn Pass, Balin's tomb and the chapter Tolkien himself called 'the crucial chapter', plus the critics who loved it and the one who called it juvenile trash. From the film: who was cast first, who turned down Gandalf, the actor replaced mid-shoot, the Oscars it won, the box office and the New Zealand river that played the Ford of Bruinen. Fifty questions, four options each, with a short explanation after every answer. Play through or print it for a quiz night.
30 of 49 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which birthday does Bilbo celebrate before leaving the Shire at the start of The Fellowship of the Ring?
111th
111th. Hobbits call it his eleventy-first, and he ends his birthday speech by slipping on the Ring and vanishing in front of his guests.
Q 02Frodo's cover story for leaving Bag End is a move to a little house at which place?
Crickhollow
Crickhollow. Frodo really does buy the house, over the river in Buckland, and it is there that his friends reveal they have known about the Ring all along.
Q 03In Tolkien's book, what drives off the Black Rider stalking Frodo's party in the Shire woods?
The singing of passing Elves
The singing of passing Elves. Their leader, Gildor, then takes the three hobbits in for the night, the first of many rescues by strangers on the road.
Q 04Which farmer drives Frodo and his friends to Bucklebury Ferry in The Fellowship of the Ring?
Maggot
Maggot. Frodo has been afraid of him since boyhood, when the farmer set his dogs on him for stealing mushrooms, but he turns out to be a staunch friend.
Q 05Which ancient tree-spirit traps Merry and Pippin in the forest on the edge of Buckland?
Old Man Willow
Old Man Willow. Tolkien lifted him from a poem he had published twenty years earlier, in which the same willow sings its victim to sleep and shuts him in a crack.
Q 06In The Fellowship of the Ring, what do the hobbits carry away from the barrow-wight's hoard?
Ancient swords
Ancient swords. Merry's proves decisive two volumes later: made long ago for war against the Witch-king, it is the blade that breaks the spell protecting him.
Q 07In which village do the hobbits first meet the Ranger called Strider?
Bree
Bree. At the inn there Frodo slips, the Ring finds its way onto his finger, and he vanishes in front of a crowded common room.
Q 08On which hill do the Black Riders attack Frodo's party and wound him with a cursed blade?
Weathertop
Weathertop. The Riders strike at night in a hollow below the summit, and though they are driven off, the wound leaves Frodo close to death by the time help arrives.
Q 09Which herb does Strider use to treat Frodo's wound in The Fellowship of the Ring?
Athelas
Athelas. In Gondor it is known only as kingsfoil, a weed kept for its scent, yet it heals best in the hands of a rightful king, which is what Strider turns out to be.
Q 10In Tolkien's book, which Elf sets the wounded Frodo on a white horse for the final dash to safety?
Glorfindel
Glorfindel. The film gives the rescue to Arwen, who rides with Frodo; in the book the Elf stays behind and Frodo crosses the ford alone on the horse.
Q 11Strider is revealed as heir of which man, who cut the One Ring from Sauron's hand?
Isildur
Isildur. Urged to destroy the Ring on the spot, he kept it instead as payment for his father's death, and it was lost when he was killed.
Q 12Which member of the Fellowship is the son of the Steward of Gondor?
Boromir
Boromir. At the journey's end he tries to take the Ring from Frodo by force, repents at once, and dies trying to save Merry and Pippin from capture.
Q 13Which mountain's snows turn the Fellowship back and force them to go through Moria instead?
Caradhras
Caradhras. The Dwarves called it the Cruel long before, and in the book the blizzard that beats the company seems to come from the mountain's own ill will.
Q 21How does Gandalf prove to Frodo that Bilbo's old ring is the One Ring?
He throws it into the fire
He throws it into the fire. The heat brings out a line of fiery letters on the plain gold band, the verse about one Ring to rule them all.
Q 22The critic Edmund Wilson's 1956 attack on The Lord of the Rings ran under the headline 'Oo, Those Awful' what?
Orcs
Orcs. Wilson called it a children's book that had got out of hand, and said its admirers had 'a lifelong appetite for juvenile trash'.
Q 23Which poet's New York Times review of The Fellowship of the Ring was headed 'The Hero Is a Hobbit'?
W. H. Auden
Q 14Which of Bilbo's old companions led the Dwarf colony found dead in Moria?
Balin
Balin. Of all the dwarves he had grown fondest of Bilbo and once came back to visit him in the Shire; in Moria the Fellowship finds only his tomb.
Q 15By what name is the Balrog of Moria also known?
Durin's Bane
Durin's Bane. The Dwarves woke it by mining too deep for mithril, and it killed their king, Durin, and drove his people out of Moria.
Q 16In which Elven forest does the Fellowship take refuge after Moria?
Lothlórien
Lothlórien. Time seems to stand still under its golden trees: the travellers stay a month and come away unsure how many days have really passed.
Q 17Which Elf-lord, husband of the Lady of the Golden Wood, gives the Fellowship boats?
Celeborn
Celeborn. With the boats comes his advice about the river ahead, and they carry the company down the Anduin to the place where it finally splits.
Q 18What is the Elvish waybread given to the Fellowship called?
Lembas
Lembas. The cakes keep sweet for many days wrapped in their leaves, yet creatures of evil cannot bear them: Gollum refuses outright to eat one.
Q 19At which hill, reached by boat down the Anduin, does the Fellowship break apart?
Amon Hen
Amon Hen. The name means Hill of Sight: on its summit stands an ancient stone seat, and Frodo, wearing the Ring, sits there and sees visions of lands far away.
Q 20Which early chapter, where Gandalf tells Frodo what his ring really is, did Tolkien call 'the crucial chapter'?
The Shadow of the Past
The Shadow of the Past. It turns a sequel about hobbit parties into a quest: here Frodo, and the reader, first learn that the Ring must be destroyed.
W. H. Auden. Tolkien later said he was deeply in the poet's debt: Auden had praised the book from the first, when that was 'by no means a popular thing to do'.
Q 24Which title did Tolkien propose for Book One, the opening half of The Fellowship of the Ring?
The Ring Sets Out
The Ring Sets Out. Tolkien wanted one novel in six titled books; his publisher, wary of the cost, split it into three volumes with new names.
Q 25Which stopping place on Frodo's road east is known as the Last Homely House?
Rivendell
Rivendell. Elrond's house earned the name as the last place of comfort for travellers heading east into the wild, and it is where the quest to destroy the Ring begins.
Q 26Which habit, says the prologue to The Fellowship of the Ring, did hobbits give the wider world?
Smoking pipe-weed
Smoking pipe-weed. Hobbits were the first to put the leaf in a pipe, and from one crossroads inn the habit spread to Men, Dwarves and Wizards.
Q 27Tolkien hoped to publish The Lord of the Rings together with which of his other works?
The Silmarillion
The Silmarillion. His publisher would not take the pair, so the older legends waited until after his death, when his son Christopher edited them for print.
Q 28Which character from the book of The Fellowship of the Ring never appears in the 2001 film?
Tom Bombadil
Tom Bombadil. The 1978 animated film and the BBC's 1981 radio serial had cut him too; this film's makers wanted nothing that strayed from Frodo and the Ring.
Q 29Who directed the 2001 film of The Fellowship of the Ring?
Peter Jackson
Peter Jackson. He insisted on shooting all three films at once in his native New Zealand, arguing that the tale had to be filmed as one big story.
Q 30Which studio financed and distributed the 2001 film of The Fellowship of the Ring?
New Line Cinema
New Line Cinema. Miramax wanted the story squeezed into one film and gave the director three weeks to find another backer; New Line's boss asked for three films, not two.