- William: "What are yer?"
- Bilbo: "Bilbo Baggins, a bur—a hobbit."
- Tom: "A burrahobbit?"
- —The Stone-trolls and Bilbo Baggins[1]
Tom, Bert, and William "Bill" Huggins were three trolls encountered by Bilbo Baggins in the Trollshaws west of the Misty Mountains, while with Thorin and Company on their quest to regain the Lonely Mountain. Like most of their kind outside of Mordor, they were vagabonds who robbed, stole, and killed for what they needed or wanted. They were destroyed by sunlight which turned them to stone with the aid of Gandalf's trickery.
Biography
Quest to the Lonely Mountain
When Bilbo tried to pick William's pocket to test his skill as a burglar, William's purse squealed, alerting him. The trio of trolls captured Bilbo who, almost revealing himself as a burglar, identified himself as a "bur—a hobbit", which they mistook for a "burrahobbit". Eventually all of the Dwarves in Thorin's company came looking for Bilbo, and were waylaid by the trolls and put into sacks. The trolls then discussed ways to kill and eat the Dwarves, until Gandalf came and mimicked the trolls' voices, starting a fight amongst them. He kept them arguing about how to cook the Dwarves until dawn came, and the sun turned them into stone before they could get to cover. Afterward, Thorin and Company found and explored the Trolls' lair.
The three trolls as statues, by Ralph Damiani
Legacy
- Strider: "There stood the trolls: three large trolls. One was stooping, and the other two stood staring at him. Strider walked forward unconcernedly. ‛Get up, old stone!’ he said, and broke his stick upon the stooping troll. Nothing happened."
- Frodo: "Well! We are forgetting our family history! These must be the very three that were caught by Gandalf, quarrelling over the right way to cook thirteen Dwarves and one hobbit."
- —Strider and Frodo find the trolls[2]
On the way to Rivendell, Aragorn and the four hobbits Frodo Baggins, Samwise Gamgee, Meriadoc Brandybuck, and Peregrin Took encountered the three trolls that had been turned to stone on the Troll Ridge[3] seventy-seven years previously, and the hobbits momentarily thought them to be alive.[2]
Notably, Frodo says that the trolls were arguing about how to cook "thirteen Dwarves and one hobbit" when they were turned to stone. However, they were actually only arguing about how to cook the Dwarves, as Bilbo had escaped from their clutches during the fighting, and was hiding in a nearby thorn-bush during the trolls' argument. This could be an error on Tolkien's part, or Frodo could have remembered the story wrong.[2]
In adaptations
The Hobbit film trilogy
In The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, the three trolls are encountered by Bilbo, Fíli and Kíli after having stolen several of the Dwarves' ponies. Fíli and Kíli stay back, while Bilbo tries to steal a blade from the trolls to cut the ponies free. When Bilbo is caught accidentally by the trolls, the Dwarves charge them and a small skirmish ensuses as Bilbo tries to free the ponies. However, Bilbo is caught, and when the trolls threaten to tear Bilbo apart, the Dwarves surrender and are put into sacks. Half of the Dwarves are put onto the spit to be cooked over the fire, while the others, including Thorin, along with Bilbo, are left on the ground in their sacks. Bilbo spots Gandalf sneaking around, and begins to discuss with the trolls ways of cooking dwarf in order to buy time. As this plan starts to fail as Tom attempts to eat Bombur raw, Bilbo quickly states the Dwarves are infested with intestinal parasites to try to stop the trolls from eating them, but they do not get easily fooled, especially William. Then Gandalf appears, and as the trolls curiously wonder who he is (and if he can be eaten), the wizard using his staff splits a rock that was shielding the trolls from the sun's light as it rises, turning them to stone. After the company was set free, Thorin and Gandalf believe that the trolls never ventured this far south from the Ettenmoors since a darker power ruled the lands.
The Fellowship finds the bodies of Tom, Bert, and William, in the extended edition of The Fellowship of the Ring film
They were portrayed by William Kircher, Peter Hambleton, and Mark Hadlow (who also played the Dwarves Bifur, Glóin and Dori in the film series) by motion capture in the first part of the film.
The Lord of the Rings film trilogy
In Peter Jackson's first film of the The Lord of the Rings film trilogy, The Fellowship of the Ring, Bilbo recounts the story of his encounter with the trolls to several hobbit-children at his 111th birthday party.
In the Extended Version, after Frodo had been stabbed on Weathertop by the Nazgûl Lord and before Arwen arrives to take him to Rivendell, the trolls are seen, still turned to stone and Sam indicates them to Frodo, saying, "Look, Mr. Frodo. Mr. Bilbo's trolls".
Gene Deitch (1966)
Trolls in Gene Deitch's film were greenish, wet, and are dressed with more filthiness than in the Peter Jackson's work.
The Hobbit (Rankin/Bass Production - 1977)
Tom, Bert and William as portrayed in The Hobbit 1977 movie
The three trolls in the Rankin/Bass film are just as large as the other depictions, though they wear more clothes, including tunics, trousers, shoes, and hats. They are very muscular and pot-bellied, with massive ears, shaggy green hair, and giant snouts full of sharp teeth like a tyrannosaurus.
Video games
- In the ZX Spectrum adaptation of The Hobbit, which was probably the first full licensed adaptation (Wikipedia link, World Of Spectrum link), there were only two trolls featured (probably due to the memory limitations of 8-bit computers), and it is not known which two these were. (Likewise, the game reduced the band of Dwarves to just Thorin.)
- The three petrified trolls can also be found in the Trollshaws both in The Lord of the Rings Online game, and in LEGO The Lord of the Rings: The Video Game. They can also be seen scattered throughout Eregion in The Lord of the Rings: The Third Age.
- The three trolls appear and are eventually playable in LEGO The Hobbit: The Video Game.
- The Trolls also make an appearance in the Battle for Middle-earth games in the Weather Top skirmish/multiplayer map. On the far right side by a small stream stand the three petrified trolls.
Voice dubbing actors
| Foreign Language | Voice dubbing artist |
|---|---|
| Spanish (Latin America) | Germán Fabregat, Ricardo Hill and Miguel Ángel Ghigliazza |
| Portuguese (Brazil) (Television/DVD) | Paulo Bernardo, Ricardo Telles and Sérgio Stern |
| German | Jörg Reitbacher-Stuttmann, Christoph Jablonka and Torsten Münchow |
| Italian (Italy) | Francesco Meoni, Francesco De Francesco and Gianfranco Salemi |
| French (France) | Jérémy Prevost, Pascal Casanova and Guillaume Lebon |
| Polish | Miłogost Reczek, Mirosław Zbrojewicz and Artur Dziurman |
| Czech | Marcel Vašinka, Zdeněk Maryška, Petr Oliva |
| Slovak | Martin Kaprálik, Matej Landl, Juraj Predmerský |
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Translations
| Foreign Language | Translated name |
|---|---|
| Chinese | 伯特、湯姆和威廉 |
| Danish | Tom, Bert og William |
| Finnish | Tom, Bertti ja Viljami |
| German | Tom, Bert und William |
| Greek | Τόμ,Μπέρτ και Γουίλλιαμ |
| Italian | Berto, Maso e Guglielmo |
| Japanese | トム, バート, そして ウイリアム |
| Norwegian | Tom, Albert, Viljam Skankerud |
| Russian | Том, Берт и Билл |
| Spanish | Tom, Berto, y Guille |
References
- ↑ The Hobbit, Chapter II: "Roast Mutton"
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 The Lord of the Rings, The Fellowship of the Ring, Book One, Chapter XII: "Flight to the Ford"
- ↑ The Chronology of The Lord of the Rings, pg. 38