These question rounds, of 8-10 questions each, are on various themes occurring across Tolkien's works. Most are from past Varsity quizzes and are thus arranged by the year they were asked.
This section contains 6 rounds, with a total of 56 questions.
2025 (Birthdays)
1. What is the date of Frodo's birthday?
2. On what birthday does a hobbit come of age?
3. Whose name reflects the fact that they were born on a night of stars?
4. Who was born Earth's daughter?
5. Who gave a birthday present that was more than they could afford, leading indirectly to their death?
6. In the Tolkien Society, what is the traditional toast on Tolkien's birthday?
7. Who had a bad cold on their 51st birthday?
8. What is the name of the party at which Bilbo's 112th birthday is celebrated?
9. Who is given silver bells shaped like flowers as a birthday present?
10. Who celebrates their birthday by both receiving and giving away a knife?
2025 (Music)
Please note that as questions 7, 8, 9 and 10 of this round involved playing excerpts of music out loud, they have not been included.
1. Name Thorin and Company’s instruments during the Unexpected Party (numbers and performers are not required).
2. What does Bilbo Baggins hate? Name six threats from the clearing up song.
3. Which three pairs are linked by singing a song in call-and-response to rescue one of them from captivity?
4. Tolkien’s characters often change lyrics of existing songs to suit the occasion. In two stories, a song is sung at the beginning of the adventure, and then sung again with different words towards the end of the adventure. Which two songs are these?
5. Who composed the music for the 2006 Lord of the Rings Musical?
6. Who composed the music for the Lord of the Rings Online?
2025 (Beasts)
1. What creature is puzzled by three hobbits sleeping out of doors in the Woody End, but never hears any more about it?
2. Where might you find Neeker-breekers?
3. Why do Paksu and Valkotukka poke the cave-bear cubs?
4. Name three animals (other than cave-bears) that can be found in the paintings in the goblin caves (in Letters from Father Christmas).
5. Who is the greatest of all whales, and which island do they help push?
6. How wide were Thorondor’s wings, according to the Silmarillion?
7. What was noticeable on the flies in Mordor?
8. What was fed on the entertainingly vague ‘strange meats’, and had no grass grow where its body was burnt?
9. Where had unusually large snails crawling around it?
10. Which three beasts –two real, one mythical –have Tolkien poems whose title is their name?
2024 (‘To the Sea! To the Sea!’)
1. Who sings ‘To the Sea, to the Sea’?
2. Which three Ainur have special responsibility for the seas?
3. Who is the first of mortal Men (it is said) to see the Sea?
4. Where does he first see the Sea?
5. Where did the ancient Sea-Serpent use to live?
6. Who is the oldest of the whales?
7. Which place has everything except the Sea?
8. What is the name of the Outer Sea?
9. How many times is the word ‘sea’ or ‘seas’ mentioned in the Lay of Earendil?
10. What were the names of the two havens of the Falathrim?
2024 (Writing)
1. Who learned Sam his letters?
2. Who write no books but sing many songs?
3. What is used to write moon letters?
4. To whom did Bilbo give a large waste paper basket, in memory of a long correspondence?
5. Who is the only named King’s Writer?
6. Who could only spell out large uncials with difficulty, and was none too sure of the reading even of his own name?
7. What unusual use does Artaxerxes have for his fountain-pen?
8. What does Tolkien speculate is the first work to apply the word ‘letters’ to the ‘old “alliterative” metre’?
9. Tolkien consulted the college gardener about the spelling of which word in The Lord of the Rings?
10. What is the oldest writing system used by the Elves?
2015 (Geography)
1. Which is the last peak of the Misty Mountains, where they end at the Gap of Rohan?
2. Which river encompassed Tol Galen, the island where Beren and Lúthien returned to live as mortals?
3. What was Mirkwood renamed after the War of the Ring and the cleansing of Dol Guldur by Celeborn and Thranduil?
4. Which feature, probably a glacial erratic, do the Eagles convey Thorin and Company to after their escape from the Great Goblin?
5. What is the name of the vast wild forest in the south of Beleriand between Sirion and Gelion, where nothing apparently happens?
6. How far do the Three Hunters travel in their first four days of pursuit of the Hobbits, according to Eomer?
7. If I multiply the number of mountains of Moria by the number of settlements in the Breeland, and subtract the number of rivers in Ossiriand, what number do I get and what might its significance be in Middle Earth?
8. Which island is the easternmost of the Undying Lands and home to much of the Teleri?
9. Which rather impressive and precipitous fluvial feature marks the southern end of Nen Hithoel?
10. Which mountain, the highest in that region of the world, do Melkor and Ungoliant climb to gaze down into Valinor before their fateful assault on the Two Trees?