Trolls

Origin

Treebeard said that Trolls were made by the Enemy in the Great Darkness as a counterfeit of the Ents, just as Orcs were made in mockery of Elves. Appendix F confirms that Morgoth made them in the Elder Days, and that they were at first dull and stupid, with no speech beyond that of beasts. Like every creation of the Shadow they were a corruption rather than a new thing, and the Ent's scorn is telling: Trolls have the strength of Ents but nothing of their patience, memory or care for growing things. What they were made from is not said; Treebeard's word is that they were counterfeits, not that Ents were twisted into them.

Nature

Trolls are enormous, taller than Men by half again or more, with hides like stone, great strength and voracious appetites. They are stupid, easily fooled, quarrelsome and cruel, and eat anything, with a particular taste for the flesh of Men, Dwarves and Hobbits. Their one great weakness in most breeds is the sun: a Troll caught in daylight turns to the stone from which, the old tale says, it was made. The three trolls of the Trollshaws that Bilbo met stand petrified there still. Because of this they lived in caves and holes, hunted by night, and in armies were kept under cover or driven at night.

Breeds

The stone-trolls of the Trollshaws and the Ettenmoors are the type most familiar from The Hobbit, speaking a debased Westron and stupid enough to be talked to death. Cave-trolls lurked in Moria, and one of them, with green scales and a toeless foot, forced the door of the Chamber of Mazarbul. Hill-trolls came from the Ettenmoors and, in Sauron's host, from Gorgoroth; hill-trolls of Gorgoroth led the assault at the Black Gate. Mountain-trolls hauled Grond, the great ram, to the Gate of Minas Tirith. Snow-trolls are mentioned once, in the tale of Helm Hammerhand. The last and worst breed was the Olog-hai, bred by Sauron late in the Third Age: cunning, armed with mail and huge shields, able to endure the sun while his will drove them, and speaking the Black Speech.

In the wars

Trolls fought in Morgoth's armies in the First Age. At the Nirnaeth Arnoediad the Troll-guard of Gothmog, captain of the Balrogs, was set on Húrin, who slew seventy of them before his axe was fouled with their black blood and he was taken. In the Third Age Trolls served the Witch-king in Angmar and Sauron in Mordor; they were part of the host at the Pelennor and at the Morannon, where Pippin killed a great hill-troll chieftain and was crushed beneath its body. Between wars they lived as brigands, eating sheep and shepherds, and the country between Rivendell and Weathertop bore their name.

Fate

When the Ring was destroyed the Olog-hai and the trolls of Mordor, whose strength came from Sauron's will, fled witless or fell where they stood. Wild trolls of the older kinds survived in the mountains and moors, a nuisance to travellers in the Fourth Age, and the stone trolls of the Trollshaws remained a landmark on the road to Rivendell.

A Troll stands well above the height of a Man, with a huge heavy body, long arms, a thick hide hard as stone, and feet like blocks. Its blood is black. The cave-troll of Moria had greenish scales and a foot without toes; the Olog-hai were more agile and less deformed, with mail and shields fitted to their size. Trolls have small wits, prodigious strength and appetite, and in most breeds turn to stone when the sun touches them.

Trolls have little culture beyond the cave and the cooking-fire. The stone-trolls of the Trollshaws lived in a hole with a hoard of plunder, quarrelled with one another over how to cook their prey, and kept a stolen purse that talked. In Sauron's armies trolls were driven by Orc-drivers and served as beasts of burden, gate-breakers and heavy infantry; the Olog-hai alone were disciplined soldiers. Their speech, where they had any, was a debased Westron of the crudest sort, and the Olog-hai used the Black Speech.

In the Elder Days, before the Sun, Morgoth made the Trolls as a mockery of the Ents, strong, stony and stupid. Whether he shaped them from stone, as the old rhymes suggest and as their fate in sunlight hints, or bred them from some living thing, is not told. They were part of his armies by the Nirnaeth, and after his fall they survived in the wild and were later taken up and improved by Sauron.

The trolls of Mordor perished with Sauron. Wild trolls lingered in the mountains of the North and the Trollshaws into the Fourth Age.