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William: "What are yer?"
Bilbo: "Bilbo Baggins, a bur—a hobbit."
William: "A burrahobbit? What's a burrahobbit got to do with my pocket, anyways?"
The Stone-trolls and Bilbo Baggins[1]

Tom, Bert, and William ("Bill") Huggins were three Stone trolls that Bilbo Baggins encountered in the Trollshaws, in Eriador, while with Thorin and Company on their quest to regain the Lonely Mountain (Erebor). Like most of their kind outside of Mordor, they were vagabonds who robbed, stole, and killed for what they needed or wanted. Their age is unknown. They were destroyed by sunlight which turned them to stone with the aid of Gandalf's trickery.

Biography

Third Age

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 Tom, Bert, and William's cave.

The Fellowship of the Ring

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]
StonedTrolls2

The Fellowship find Tom, Bert, and William, having turned to stone long before

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 seventy-seven years previously, and the hobbits momentarily thought them to be alive.[2]

Behind the Scenes

There is some confusion as to what breed of Troll they were, some saying Stone Trolls—this confusion being easily illustrated by the fact that several different pages of this wiki detailing breeds of Troll list these three as members of that particular breed.

Appearances

Books

Films

Video games

Portrayal in adaptations

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 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 carrying 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 the Second Age, when a darker power ruled the lands.

The Trolls also make an appearance in the Battle of Middle Earth games in the Weather Top skirmish/multiplayer map. On the far right side by a small stream stand the three petrified trolls.

They were portrayed by William Kircher, Peter Hambleton, and Mark Hadlow (who also played the dwarves Bifur, Gloin 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 Lord of the Rings trilogy, The Fellowship of the Ring (2001), 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".

It is unknown why Bilbo doesn't mention how Gandalf caused the trolls to be turned into stone by exposing them to the sunlight and saving Bilbo and the dwarves, while telling about his encounter to the children during his birthday party. He only mentions the sunlight turning the trolls into stone.

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.

Video games

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

Gallery

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Tom the troll (right)]]
The-Hobbit-An-Unexpected-Journey-Dwarves-vs.-Trolls
William the troll
A Troll that turned into stone a.k.a. Bilbo's troll
William turned to stone
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Bert the troll
Original
Bert, William, and Tom at the San Diego Comic Con 2012
ScreenShot2013-12-12at122628PM zps1f4d882c
One of trolls portrayed in this version by Ghostwalker2061

References

External links

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