Elena Tiriel
Message:
28123
01 Jul 04 10:19 PM
Reply To:
28051
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(not sure about this one, is it a known fact that trolls are really stupid?)
Here's what Tolkien said:
In their beginning far back in the twilight of the Elder Days, these were creatures of dull and lumpish nature and had no more language than beasts. But Sauron had made use of them, teaching them what little they could learn, and increasing their wits with wickedness. Trolls therefore took such language as they could master from the Orcs; and in the Westlands the Stone-trolls spoke a debased form of the Common Speech
[think of Tom, Bert, & Bill, the three trolls from The Hobbit that Gandalf tricked into turning into stone when the sun rose].
But at the end of the Third Age a troll-race not before seen appeared in southern Mirkwood and in the mountain borders of Mordor. Olog-hai they were called in the Black Speech. That Sauron bred them none doubted, though from what stock was not known. Some held that they were not Trolls but giant Orcs; but the Olog-hai were in fashion of body and mind quite unlike even the largest of Orc-kind, whom they far surpassed in size and power. Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race, strong, agile, fierce and cunning, but harder than stone. Unlike the older race of the Twilight
[T, B, & B again] they could endure the Sun, so long as the will of Sauron held sway over them. They spoke little, and the only tongue that they knew was the Black Speech of Barad-dûr.
The Return of the King, LoTR Appendix F,
The Languages and Peoples of the Third Age: Of Other Races
Hope this helps!
- Barbara
(Edit: ) BTW, what is a Dumbledor supposed to be? I don't recall having run into that term anywhere in Tolkien canon... It's not in the Indices for Silm, LoTR, UT, or HoME... The Hobbit, unfortunately, doesn't have an index, but I don't recall seeing the name there, either.
Karri
