THE HOBBIT
1) Not counting riddles, how many poems and songs are in The Hobbit?
Answer: 14 (Chip the glasses; misty mountains; where are you going; clap! snap!; fifteen birds; the wind was on the withered heath; old fat spider; lazy lob and crazy cob; down the swift dark stream; king beneath the mountains; under the mountain dark and tall; the dragon is withered; sing all ye joyful; roads go ever ever on)
2) Who lit the fire at Beorn’s House? (be specific)
Answer: “four beautiful white ponies and several large long-bodied grey dogs”
3) What type of crown (or crowns) does the Elven King wear?
Answer: leaves, berries and red leaves (for autumn), woodland flowers (for spring)
4) What did Thorin suggest should happen to Gandalf when he cursed the wizard for the choice of Bilbo?
Answer: “May his beard wither!”(inexact quotation permitted)
5) When the Shire was founded, what did the king demand of the hobbits (other
than to acknowledge his lordship)?
Answer: To keep the bridges and roads in repair, and to speed the king's messengers
6) What are Bilbo's last words in his conversation with Smaug?
Answer: "And so do burglars"
7) What was the plan of battle that the Elvenking, Bard, and Dain made for the
battle of the five armies?
Answer: To lure the goblins into the valley between the arms of the mountain (and
themselves to man the great spurs that struck south and east).
8) What does the Elvenking wish for Bilbo at their parting?
Answer: “May your shadow never grow less"
BIOGRAPHY & LANGUAGES
1) Name the street of Tolkien’s birth in Bloemfontein.
Answer: Maitland St.
2) What did Tolkien and Christopher Wiseman privately call themselves?
Answer: the Great Twin Brethren
3) In The Lord of the Rings, the name Sangahyando is given to a man. But
earlier Tolkien gave the name to something rather different. What was
it?
Answer: a (corsair) sword (namely, Turambar’s sword in an early version of the legend)
4) What is the name of the palatal series in Tengwar?
Answer: tyelpetéma
5) Which of the Inklings interrupted a reading of The Lord of the Rings with
the words "Not another fucking elf!"?
Answer: Hugo Dyson
6) Tolkien was once given a goblet which he never drank from. Instead, he used it
as an ashtray. Why?
Answer: It had the ring inscription on it.
7) According to The Lord of the Rings, what is the literal meaning of Hithlain?
Answer: Mist-thread
8) What does "Vanda sina termaruva Elennanóreo alcar enyalien" mean?
Answer: This oath shall stand in memory of the glory of the land of the star.
THE LORD OF THE RINGS
1) Name the date of the following events: Frodo captured at Cirith Ungol; the Pelennor is overrun; Aragorn captures the corsair fleet.
Answer: March 13
2) What is the first date the Periannath are mentioned in the annals?
Answer: TA 1050 (coming of the Harfoots to Eriador)(the precision required is at the discretion of the quizmaster)
3) Please complete the verse: “When dawn came dim the land was lost, / The mountains sinking grey / Beyond the heaving waves that tossed ...”
Answer: “Their plumes of blinding spray”
4) Write at least eleven hobbit families mentioned as present in the tree pavilion at the Long-Expected Party.
Answer: Bagginses, Sackville-Bagginses, Tooks, Brandybucks, Grubbs, Chubbs, Burrowses, Hornblowers, Bolgers, Boffins, Bracegirdles, Goodbodies, Brockhouses, Proudfeet (‘-foots’ is also accepted)
5) On what day of the week was Bilbo’s party?
Answer: Thursday (also accepted: Mersday)
6) Where is the Closed Door?
Answer: the sixth circle of Minas Tirith
7) What was the name of Theoden’s minstrel?
Answer: Gléowine
8) What is another name for the Silent Street?
Answer: Rath Dínen
9) Which character in The Lord of the Rings bites his or her nails?
Answer: Boromir
10) What did Bilbo give to Dora Baggins?
Answer: A waste-paper basket
11) Where was the boar of Everholt hunted?
Answer: Firien Wood
12) What is the name of the wood which stands on the peninsula immediately to the
south of the mouth of the Brandywine?
Answer: Eryn Vorn
13) What does Strider describe as 'a mighty matter of legend'?
Answer: The green earth
14) How does Ghân-buri-Ghân describe the number 'six thousand'?
Answer: "A score of scores counted ten times and five”
15) In The Return of the King, who was clad in ragged brown and armed with a bow of horn?
Answer: A tracker-orc (in the ravine beneath the Morgai)
16) How long was Sam's rope?
Answer: 30 ells
POSTHUMOUS WORKS
1) Write seven names of Túrin (but not including Túrin).
Answers: Woodwose (or Wild man of the Woods), Gorthol, Neithan, Agarwaen, Adanedhel, Mormegil, Turambar
2) At what time of day or night did Earendil slay Ancalagon the Black?
Answer: “before the rising of the sun” (exact quotation required?)
3) Under what name does J.R.R. Tolkien appear in the Notion Club Papers?
Answer: John Jethro Rashbold
4) What was the relation of Turin to Brandir the Lame both within the Second and the Third House of the Edain?
Answer: second cousin
5) According to the published Silmarillion: when Glaurung first showed himself, who drove him back into Angband?
Answer: Fingon
6) Who said "But hold me blameless in this, and in all that may come after",
and to whom?
Answer: Míriel to Finwë
7) What happened on the day of the feast of the Gates of Summer?
Answer: The fall of Gondolin
8) What and where was ‘Aeluin’?
Answer: A lake in the east of Dorthonion
MINOR WORKS
1) In Smith of Wootton Major, what did Nokes want to write on the Great Cake for the Twenty-four Feast?
Answer: Fairy Queen
2) What can you find the beyond the Merlock Mountains?
Answer: Mewlips
3) In Farmer Giles of Ham, how many copies of the letter about Master Aegidius does the King send?
Answer: three (“...one copy for Giles; one for the parson; and one to be nailed on the church door”)
4) At the bears’ party in Mr. Bliss, who swallowed a crumb the wrong way and was coughing in the scullery?
Herbert
5) Why did the North Polar Bear climb the North Pole?
Answer: To fetch Father Christmas's hood
6) In The Lay of Aotrou and Itroun, what does Aotrou hunt in the forest?
Answer: A white doe
7) In The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth, how do Torhthelm and Tídwald first recognise Beorhtnoth's body?
Answer: By the length of his legs
8) When Smith of Wootton Major asked the people of Faery where the king was, what
did they reply?
Answer: "He has not told us"