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50 free The Fellowship of the Ring trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Aug 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 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which birthday does Bilbo celebrate before leaving the Shire at the start of the book?
111th
Hobbits call it 'eleventy-first'. Bilbo hands the Ring to Frodo, his cousin and heir, and vanishes mid-speech.
Q 02Frodo's cover story for leaving is a move to a little house in which village?
Crickhollow
It lies in Buckland, across the Brandywine. Merry has the house ready, and it is there the conspiracy of friends is unmasked.
Q 03Which Elf leads the travelling company whose singing wards off the Black Riders?
Gildor Inglorion
His people are singing to Elbereth. The hobbits spend the night with them, the first of the book's many rescues by hospitality.
Q 04Which farmer takes the hobbits to Bucklebury Ferry?
Maggot
Frodo had stolen his mushrooms as a boy and still fears his dogs, but the farmer turns out to be a staunch ally.
Q 05Which ancient tree-spirit traps Merry and Pippin in the Old Forest?
Old Man Willow
Tolkien had invented him years earlier for the 1934 poem 'The Adventures of Tom Bombadil' and reused the character here.
Q 06After the barrow-wight episode, what are the hobbits equipped with from its hoard?
Ancient swords
Merry's blade from the barrow later matters a great deal: it was forged to work against the Witch-king.
Q 07In which village do the hobbits first encounter the Ranger called Strider?
Bree
Frodo draws every eye in the inn when the Ring slips onto his finger and he vanishes from the crowded common room.
Q 08On which hill do the Black Riders attack the party and wound Frodo with a cursed blade?
Weathertop
Its Elvish name is Amon Sûl, once the site of a great watchtower. The Witch-king himself leads the attack.
Q 09What herb does Strider use to treat Frodo's wound?
Athelas
Also called kingsfoil, it returns in The Return of the King when the hands of the king prove to be healing hands.
Q 10In the book, which Elf rides with the gravely ill Frodo toward Rivendell?
Glorfindel
The film hands this rescue to Arwen instead, one of its better-known departures from the text.
Q 11Strider is revealed as heir of which man, who cut the One Ring from Sauron's hand?
Isildur
He refused to destroy the Ring and claimed it; it betrayed him and was lost in the river when he was killed.
Q 12Which member of the Fellowship is the son of the Steward of Gondor?
Boromir
He is the only member of the nine who never reaches the end of the book's second volume alive.
Q 13Which route over the Misty Mountains does the Fellowship fail to cross before Moria?
Redhorn Pass
The mountain is Caradhras. In the book the snow seems to have a will of its own; the film blames Saruman's sorcery.
Q 21Roughly how many words long is 'The Council of Elrond', the longest chapter in Book Two?
15,000
It is almost all people talking, flouting 'show, don't tell', yet Tom Shippey calls it a largely unappreciated tour de force.
Q 22Which critic attacked the book in a 1956 review titled 'Oo, Those Awful Orcs!'?
Edmund Wilson
He called it 'juvenile trash' and said the author had 'no instinct for literary form'. Sales disagreed.
Q 23Which poet praised the book in The New York Times, likening it to The Thirty-Nine Steps?
W. H. Auden
He admired the relentless invention but thought the light humour of the opening chapters was 'not Tolkien's forte'.
Q 14Which of Bilbo's old companions led the Dwarf colony found dead in Moria?
Balin
He was the dwarf who had been kindest to Bilbo on the Erebor quest. His tomb is where the Fellowship reads the colony's last record.
Q 15By what name is the Balrog of Moria known in the film?
Durin's Bane
The name records what it did: the dwarves of Durin's line woke it by digging too deep, and it ended their kingdom.
Q 16In which Elven forest does the Fellowship take refuge after Moria?
Lothlórien
Time runs strangely there; the company later realises a month has passed while they rested.
Q 17Which Elf-lord, husband of the Lady of the Golden Wood, gives the Fellowship boats?
Celeborn
Along with the boats come elven cloaks and waybread. The film gives most of these gift-giving lines to his wife.
Q 18What is the Elvish waybread given to the Fellowship called?
Lembas
One cake is said to keep a traveller on his feet for a day of long labour. Gollum cannot stomach it.
Q 19At which hill, reached by boat down the Anduin, does the Fellowship break apart?
Amon Hen
Its name means Hill of Sight. Frodo sits on its ancient seat wearing the Ring and sees Sauron's eye searching for him.
Q 20Which chapter did the author call 'the crucial chapter' of the entire novel?
The Shadow of the Past
A sketch of it was among the first things written, early in 1938; the descriptions of Gollum and the Ring were added in 1944.
Q 24In the Millennium edition, Book One carries which of the author's own proposed titles?
The Ring Sets Out
He had wanted the whole novel in a single volume with six named books; the publisher split it into three parts instead.
Q 25Tom Shippey counted how many safe 'Homely Houses' the hobbits are dug out of in the first half?
Five
Jenny Turner summed up the rhythm as 'Scary, safe again. Scary, safe again.' and called the book ideal for vulnerable readers.
Q 26The book's prologue is titled 'Concerning Hobbits, and other ___'?
Matters
It covers hobbit origins, pipe-weed and the ordering of the Shire, for readers who skipped The Hobbit.
Q 27The author hoped to publish the novel in one volume, possibly combined with which work?
The Silmarillion
The publisher balked; that older legendarium only appeared in 1977, edited by his son Christopher after his death.
Q 28Which character from the book is omitted entirely from the 2001 film?
Tom Bombadil
The director wanted a film focused on Frodo and the Ring, the 'backbone' of the story, so the Old Forest detour went.
Q 29Who directed the 2001 film adaptation?
Peter Jackson
He shot all three films back to back in his native New Zealand, starting in October 1999.
Q 30Which studio financed and distributed the film?
New Line Cinema
Miramax had the rights first but wanted a single film; the project moved and became a trilogy.