Hill-trolls

The breed

Hill-trolls are Trolls of the open hills and mountains as opposed to the caves. In the North they lived in the Ettenmoors, the troll-fells that Aragorn named as the source of the trolls that came down into the Trollshaws, and they were the plague of the country between Rivendell and Angmar. In the South they were the hill-trolls of Gorgoroth, a taller and more warlike race raised in the mountains ringing Mordor.

The hill-trolls of the North

The trolls of the Ettenmoors were the old breed, turned to stone by sunlight and dangerous only by night. They served the Witch-king of Angmar in his wars on Arnor, and long after Angmar's fall they wandered south into the Trollshaws, where Bert, Tom and William were of their kind. Elrond's people and the Rangers kept watch on them.

The hill-trolls of Gorgoroth

At the Battle of the Morannon on 25 March 3019 Sauron sent out hill-trolls of Gorgoroth as the first great wave of his assault. They were taller and broader than Men, clad only in close-fitting mesh of horny scales, and armed with round black shields and heavy hammers; they bit the throats of the men they felled. One of them, a chieftain, struck down Beregond and stooped to kill him, and Pippin drove his barrow-blade of Westernesse up into the troll's belly. It fell on him and crushed him, and he lay under it as the Eagles came and the Ring was destroyed; Gimli found him alive among the dead. When Sauron fell the surviving trolls fled witless or were slain.

Mountain-trolls

At the siege of Minas Tirith the great ram Grond was hauled by huge beasts and wielded by mountain-trolls, who forced the Gate of the City for the Witch-king. They are a related breed and are counted here with the trolls of the hills.

Legacy

The hill-trolls of Gorgoroth show how far Sauron had improved his trolls by the end of the Third Age: they fought in daylight under the cloud he sent out and in disciplined ranks, as the Olog-hai did. Their fall with him showed the limit of that improvement.

Taller and broader than Men, with a hide of horny scales, huge hammers and round shields among the Gorgoroth breed; the northern hill-trolls were of the older, stone-turning kind, great and slow.

The northern hill-trolls lived as brigands in bands; the trolls of Gorgoroth were drilled soldiers of Mordor who fought in the van of Sauron's host.

Trolls of Morgoth's making, scattered into the hills of the North after the First Age and later gathered, bred and hardened by Sauron in the mountains of Mordor.

The trolls of Gorgoroth fell or fled at the destruction of the Ring; the hill-trolls of the Ettenmoors lingered into the Fourth Age.