The Silmarillion
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100 free The Silmarillion trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
The Silmarillion is the book J. R. R. Tolkien spent his whole life writing and never finished. Begun in 1914 after the Somme, rejected by his publisher in 1937 as obscure and "too Celtic", it was finally assembled by his son Christopher and published in 1977, four years after Tolkien's death. Reviewers savaged it; readers bought it anyway. These 100 questions walk through all five parts: the Music of the Ainur, the Valaquenta, the long tragedy of the Silmarils from the Two Trees to the War of Wrath, the drowning of Númenor, and the Rings of Power. You will meet Fëanor and his seven sons, Beren and Lúthien, Túrin and Glaurung, Tuor in Gondolin and Ar-Pharazôn's doomed fleet. There are also questions on how the book came to be: the 1926 Sketch, Guy Gavriel Kay's secret year in Oxford, the chapter Christopher had to write himself, and the metal bands that borrowed its names. Every answer is cited to a page we checked, with a short explanation so a miss still teaches you something. Easy questions stick to the famous names; the hard tier asks about fortresses, epithets and editions. Play it solo or print it for a Tolkien night.
30 of 100 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Who edited and published The Silmarillion after his father's death?
Christopher Tolkien
Christopher Tolkien later called it an error to have published the book with no framework explaining what it was, and he laid the drafts bare in the twelve-volume History of Middle-earth.
Q 02Which book followed The Silmarillion in 1980?
Unfinished Tales
Unfinished Tales took the opposite approach: where The Silmarillion smoothed the drafts into one story, it printed them much as Tolkien left them, gaps and all.
Q 03Which future fantasy novelist spent a year in Oxford helping Tolkien's son edit The Silmarillion?
Guy Gavriel Kay
Guy Gavriel Kay, then a Canadian philosophy student, got the job through a family connection, and a decade later published the first book of his own fantasy trilogy, the Fionavar Tapestry.
Q 04In The Silmarillion, what is the whole universe called, within which Arda is the world?
Eä
Eä is the word Ilúvatar spoke to make the vision real: it is the Quenya verb 'to be', so the universe is named after the command that created it.
Q 05Tolkien's publisher rejected an early draft of The Silmarillion as obscure and "too" what?
Celtic
"Too Celtic" was the verdict, and the rejection pushed Tolkien to start a Hobbit sequel instead, which grew into The Lord of the Rings.
Q 06The Silmarillion's last part retells Frodo's quest, set in which Age?
Third
Third Age events close the book in brief: the War of the Ring, which fills The Lord of the Rings, is retold as the short last episode of a far older history.
Q 07Which part of The Silmarillion tells of the world's creation through a great music?
Ainulindalë
Ainulindalë is Quenya for 'The Music of the Ainur': the song comes first, and only afterwards is the world it describes shown to the singers as a vision and then made real.
Q 08Which part of The Silmarillion relates the Downfall of Númenor?
Akallabêth
Akallabêth means 'The Downfallen': it is Tolkien's version of the Atlantis legend, born of his own recurring dream of a great wave towering over green land.
Q 09Which Elven king challenged Melkor to single combat and wounded him seven times before falling?
Fingolfin
Fingolfin could not kill an immortal foe, but his last stroke hewed the Dark Lord's foot, and his enemy walked with a limp ever after.
Q 10Which Finnish epic is cited as a major influence on The Silmarillion?
Kalevala
Kalevala so captivated Tolkien that he borrowed a Finnish grammar at Oxford to read it in the original, and the language became a model for his Elvish tongue Quenya.
Q 11Which doomed hero of the Finnish epic became Tolkien's model for Túrin?
Kullervo
Kullervo ends by asking his sword whether it will take his life, and the blade answers; Tolkien gave Túrin the same death scene with the black sword Gurthang.
Q 12Which Silmarillion chapter, on Thingol's death, did its editor build almost from scratch?
Of the Ruin of Doriath
Of the Ruin of Doriath had not been touched since the early 1930s and no longer fitted the later story, so the editor wrote new linking narrative in his father's manner to bridge the gap.
Q 13Which hobbit wrote the Translations from the Elvish, the supposed source of The Silmarillion?
Bilbo Baggins
Q 21In The Silmarillion, Thingol and Melian ruled which Elves?
Sindar
The Sindar were Teleri who never crossed the Sea: many stayed in Beleriand searching for Thingol, who had vanished for years in a forest, spellbound by Melian.
Q 22After his banishment from Tirion, Fëanor built which fortress to the north?
Formenos
Formenos held Fëanor's treasury, and his father King Finwë chose to share the exile there; Melkor killed Finwë at the stronghold when he came for the Silmarils.
Q 23In The Silmarillion, which dark spider spirit helped Melkor kill the Two Trees?
Ungoliant
Ungoliant then demanded the Silmarils as her reward and turned on Melkor himself, who had to be rescued by his Balrogs; Shelob of The Lord of the Rings is her offspring.
Bilbo Baggins filled three volumes with Elvish lore at Rivendell; Tolkien's son found no statement that these were The Silmarillion, but assumed so from the hints in The Lord of the Rings.
Q 14Melkor searched the Void for what?
The Flame Imperishable
The Flame Imperishable stayed with Ilúvatar alone, so Melkor could never give true life to anything; denied it, he turned to marring what others made.
Q 15Which Vala, Lord of Waters, never dwelt in Valinor and went on aiding Elves and Men in Middle-earth?
Ulmo
Ulmo never abandoned the exiled Elves, even under the wrath of the Valar: he appeared to the mortal Tuor on the coast and sent him as a messenger, warning King Turgon that his realm would fall.
Q 16The Valaquenta describes the Valar and which lesser spirits, Sauron among them?
Maiar
Maiar are spirits of the same kind as the Valar but lesser in power; Gandalf was one as well, the same order of being as Sauron and the Balrog he fought in Moria.
Q 17In The Silmarillion, which two lamps lit the world before Melkor cast them down?
Illuin and Ormal
Illuin and Ormal stood on pillars taller than any later mountain; when Melkor threw them down, the Valar abandoned Middle-earth for Aman and grew the Two Trees to light it instead.
Q 18Which Vala made the Two Trees, Telperion and Laurelin?
Yavanna
Yavanna sang the Two Trees into being while Nienna watered the mound with her tears; when they were killed, the two could revive only one last flower and one last fruit, which became the Moon and the Sun.
Q 19Which Vala, the smith, created the Dwarves?
Aulë
Aulë made the Dwarves because he was too impatient to wait for Elves and Men to appear; Ilúvatar gave them life but would not let them come first, so they were laid to sleep until the Elves had awoken.
Q 20Which Vala kindled the new stars under which the Elves first awoke?
Varda
Varda finished her new stars just as the Elves woke, so starlight was the first thing they ever saw; that is why they revere her above all the Valar and call on her as Elbereth.
Q 24What name did Fëanor give Melkor after the theft of the Silmarils?
Morgoth
Morgoth means 'Black Foe': Fëanor cursed Melkor by that name on learning he had murdered Fëanor's father Finwë and taken the jewels, and the Dark Lord goes by it from then on.
Q 25Returning with the stolen Silmarils, Melkor rebuilt which ruined fortress as his seat of power?
Angband
Angband had begun as a mere outpost guarding Utumno; rebuilt, it withstood a siege by the Noldor that lasted centuries, until Melkor broke out in the Battle of Sudden Flame.
Q 26How many sons joined Fëanor in swearing his oath to recover the Silmarils?
7
Fëanor's 7 sons swore with him to hunt down anyone, friend or foe, who kept a Silmaril; bound by it, they killed fellow Elves at the havens to seize ships, the first Kinslaying.
Q 27In The Silmarillion, the Noldor whom Fëanor betrayed crossed which region of ice on foot?
Helcaraxë
Helcaraxë means the Grinding Ice: it was the only road left to those Fëanor abandoned when he sailed off in the stolen ships and burned them on the far shore.
Q 28In The Silmarillion, Turgon built which secret city in a vale ringed by mountains?
Gondolin
Gondolin was raised as a memorial to Tirion, the city the Noldor had left behind in Valinor, and it stayed hidden for centuries before it was betrayed from within.
Q 29Which nephew of King Turgon betrayed his hidden city to Melkor?
Maeglin
Maeglin was captured by Orcs while mining beyond the mountains against Turgon's orders, and he revealed the city in return for the promise of his cousin Idril, whom he loved.
Q 30Which great hound of Valinor helped Beren and Lúthien on their quest and defeated Sauron in combat?
Huan
Huan overcame Sauron at the gates of his own tower, and later hunted down and killed the great wolf Carcharoth in the Hunting of the Wolf.