The Fellowship of the Ring Book Quiz

What the book of The Fellowship of the Ring contains

The Fellowship of the Ring, published in 1954, is the first of three volumes of The Lord of the Rings. It opens with a Prologue about hobbits and then tells two of the work’s six books: Book I, twelve chapters following Frodo from Bag End to Rivendell, and Book II, ten chapters following the Fellowship from Rivendell to the banks of the Great River.

The Prologue is easy to skip and worth reading. It describes what hobbits are like, how the Shire is governed, where pipe-weed came from, and how Bilbo found the Ring, including the note that Bilbo’s first account of the riddle game was not the true one. It reads like a historian’s introduction, which is exactly the effect Tolkien wanted.

The volume ends at Parth Galen with the Fellowship breaking apart and Frodo and Sam crossing the river alone. Boromir’s death, a famous scene in the film, is not in this book: it opens The Two Towers.

The long road out of the Shire

The biggest difference between the book and the film is time. In the film, Frodo seems to leave home soon after Bilbo’s party. In the book, Gandalf goes away for years of searching, and Frodo only sets out seventeen years later, after Gandalf returns with the truth about the Ring and its inscription.

The journey that follows is slower and stranger than the film’s chase. The hobbits pretend Frodo is moving to Crickhollow in Buckland, Fredegar Bolger stays behind there as a decoy, and the travellers cut through the Old Forest to avoid the Black Riders. That route brings them to Old Man Willow, Tom Bombadil and Goldberry, and the Barrow-downs, where a barrow-wight nearly takes them and Tom rescues them a second time.

Those chapters were left out of the film, but they matter in the book. The barrow-blades the hobbits take from the mound turn out to be important much later, and the Ring has no power over Bombadil at all, a puzzle the Council of Elrond discusses before concluding that he would not keep it safe.

The Elvish of the first volume

The Fellowship of the Ring contains more Elvish than any other part of the story, and most of it is spoken by different people than film viewers expect. In the Woody End it is Frodo, not an Elf, who greets Gildor with Elen síla lúmenn’ omentielvo, a star shines on the hour of our meeting, and Gildor’s company who sing the hymn A Elbereth Gilthoniel. On the road to Rivendell, Glorfindel greets Aragorn with mae govannen and urges his horse on with Noro lim, Asfaloth.

Elvish also appears at the worst moment of Book I. On Weathertop, as the Witch-king strikes, Frodo cries out to Elbereth in Elvish, and Aragorn later says the name hurt the Rider more than Frodo’s blade did. Tolkien uses the name of the star-queen as a kind of weapon, which our article on what Elbereth means explores further.

At the gate of Moria, Gandalf reads the inscription in Sindarin and finally says mellon, friend. In Lothlórien, Galadriel sings Namárië, a lament in Quenya, as the Fellowship sails away. Our guide to the Elvish phrases in The Fellowship of the Ring goes through each line, and what mellon means explains why the password worked.

If you want to go further than recognising these phrases, you can learn Elvish through short lessons in Quenya and Sindarin, or try writing your own sentences with the Elvish translator.

Moria and Lothlórien as the book tells them

Book II moves from darkness to light. In Moria the Fellowship finds the Chamber of Mazarbul and the Book of Mazarbul, the dwarves’ record of Balin’s failed colony, before the drums drive them toward the Bridge of Khazad-dûm. Gandalf falls there with the Balrog, and the company escapes into the open air without him.

Lothlórien follows immediately, and Tolkien uses it as a place of rest and grief. The Fellowship stays long enough to mourn Gandalf, Frodo and Sam look into the Mirror of Galadriel, and Frodo offers her the Ring, which she refuses. When they leave, each member receives a gift chosen for him, from Frodo’s phial of starlight to Sam’s box of earth, a gift that only shows its full meaning at the end of the story. Our Lothlórien guide covers the Golden Wood in more depth.

Reading the book after the film

Many readers come to the book after the 2001 film, and it can feel slow at first. The pace picks up once the hobbits leave Bree, and the second half, from the Council of Elrond onward, is close in shape to what the film shows. The Council itself is one of the longest chapters in the book and gives much of the history the film only hints at.

In the book the Council is a long exchange of reports. Glóin, Gimli’s father, tells of a messenger from Mordor asking the dwarves about hobbits; Boromir describes the dream that sent him north; Bilbo tells his own story of the Ring; and Gandalf recounts how Saruman held him prisoner on the top of Orthanc until an eagle carried him away. Together they turn a quest into a council of the free peoples.

It helps to read the explanations in this quiz as a guide to the differences. Glorfindel instead of Arwen, Merry instead of Frodo at the gate, seventeen years instead of a few days: none of these are mistakes in the film, but they are different choices, and knowing the book’s version makes both richer.