Tour 1: The People of Middle-Earth
Trolls
Three very larger persons were sitting round a very large fire of beech-logs. They were roasting mutton on long spits of wood, and licking the gravy off their fingers. There was a fine toothsome smell. Also there was a barrel of good drink at hand, and they were obviously drinking out of jugs. But they were trolls. Obviously trolls. Even Bilbo, in spite of his sheltered life, could see that: from the great heavy faces of them, and their size, and the shape of their legs, not to mention their language, which was not drawing-room fashion at all, at all. --The Hobbit, "Roast Mutton"
For a couple o' pins,' says Troll, and grins,/'I'll eat thee too, and gnaw thy shins./A bit o' fresh meat will go down sweet!/I'll try my teeth on thee now.' --FotR, "Flight to the Ford"
Detail from The Trolls,
by J.R.R. Tolkien
a widely reproduced movie pic
The Stone Trolls, by Alan Lee
Bert, Bill and Tom the Trolls,
by Alan Lee
In theire beginning far back in the twilight of the Elder Days, [trolls] 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 and 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. --RotK, Appendix F, "Trolls"
But through them there came striding up, roaring like beasts, a great company of hill-trolls out of Gorgoroth. Taller and broader than Men they were, and they were clad only in close-fitting mesh of horny scales, or maybe that was their hideous hide; but they bore round bucklers huge and black and wielded heavy hammers in their knotted hands. --RotK, "The Black Gate Opens"
image from a Decipher trading
card, via theonering.net
image from the second commercial available on the official movie site
image from a Decipher card
image from the second commercial available on the official movie site