Tom, Bert, and William
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.
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, finding the trolls' cache of looted gold and jewels and three Elven blades, Glamdring, Orchrist and Sting.
Legacy
On the way to Rivendell, Aragorn and the four hobbits Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin encountered the three trolls that had been turned to stone on the Troll Ridge seventy-seven years prior, and the hobbits momentarily thought them to be alive.
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 misremembered the details of the story.
In adaptations
The Hobbitfilm 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 discovered by the trolls, the Dwarves charge them and a small skirmish ensues as Bilbo tries to free the ponies. However, Bilbo is seized again, 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. When Bert states his concern that dawn is coming, Bilbo starts to buy some time by suggesting ways the trolls can cook the dwarves. This plan starts to fail when 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, which the confused Dwarves deny until Thorin hints them to play along, but the monsters are not so 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. Thorin and Gandalf ponder that trolls have never ventured this far south from the Ettenmoors since a darker power ruled the lands.
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 Ringsfilm 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".
The Hobbit (1966)
Trolls in Eugene Merril 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)
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. They were voiced by Donald Earle Messick, Solomon Hersh Frees, and John Stephenson.
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 The Battle for Middle-earth video game series in the Weather Top skirmish/multiplayer map. On the far right side by a small stream stand the three petrified trolls.