There are heaps of cool things about Lord of the Rings - from the epic movies to the languages Tolkien invented for his characters. Here are 20 of the best fantasy facts, specially picked by our elf experts!

1. Gimli is actually really tall!

In fact he's the tallest actor in the Fellowship! His shortness is all just clever camera work!

2. The Nazgul screams...

Were made by scraping plastic cups together and adding lots of sound effects!

3. Bearded ladies

Lots of the Riders of Rohan were played by women wearing fake beards.

4. Aragorn hurt himself LOADS during filming!

When Aragorn kicks the orc helmet in the Two Towers, he broke two of his toes - and his shout of pain is a real one! Later on in filming, Aragaorn also broke on his teeth and had to have it superglued back in so he could keep on filming! Ouch!

5. Gimli is also the voice of Treebeard the Ent!

We knew that rumbling was familiar!

6. Sean Bean is scared of flying!

Sean Bean - the actor who plays Boromir - doesn't like helicopters. So whenever there was a scene at the top of the mountain, he insisted on hiking up instead - in full armour!

7. The REAL Ring

Tolkien got the idea for Sauron's ring from a real-life Roman ring that was found in Britain in 1785. The ring had a spell carved into it that cursed anyone who stole it with bad health until it was returned. Spooky!

8. Uruk-Hai like Cricket?

The roaring noises for the Uruk-Hai at Helm's Deep were recorded at a cricket match! The director wanted thousands of voices in the battle cry, so they recorded the 25,000 strong audience shouting "Rrwaaa harra farr rrara!"

9. Sean Connery isn't in it

Sean Connery (one of the original James Bonds) was originally offered the role of Gandalf, but he turned it down because he "didn't understand" the storyline. Huh?

10. Mount Doom is real!

It's just really, really far away. It's orbiting Saturn, in fact! That's right - all the mountains on the moon of Titan are going to be named after mountains in Middle Earth!

11. Tolkien made "dwarves" popular

Dwarfs have been around in legends and myths for AGES - but Tolkien was one of the first to spell 2 or more Dwarfs as "Dwarves" and not "Dwarfs". Dwarfs is technically the correct spelling, but since Tolkien published The Hobbit "dwarves" has been steadily gaining in popularity. Funny - seeing as Tolkien only spelled it "dwarves" by mistake anyway!

12. Gimli in Bikini Bottom?

The actor who plays Gimli also plays Man Ray in Spongebob!

13. Elvish is real!

Tolkien invented Elvish as a real, working language. In fact, Tolkien invented a few different languages from the Lord of Rings universe, and worked out their grammar and everything. Viggo Mortensen - the actor who played Aragorn, even went as far as to learn it for his role!

13. Sea Orcs?

The orc sound effects came from seal pups and otters - again, with a LOAD of sound effects! We never knew otters could be scary, but that's us proven wrong!

14. Orc Breath!

Orcs have black blood, so their mouths should be black too. To do this the actors who played them all had to rinse their mouths with licorice mouthwash!

15. Tolkien was a big romantic

He based the beautiful elf character of Luthien on his wife Edith! Awww!

16. What colour are Legolas' eyes?

Orlando Bloom (who played Legolas) hated wearing blue contacts, so in some scenes in the film Legolas has blue eyes, and others he has brown!

17. You can visit Mount Doom!

Mordor was filmed in Tongariro National Park in New Zealand. It's got some amazing natural scenery, and thankfully - no orcs. YET.

18. Gandalf really did bump his head!

When Gandalf turns round and bashes his head against Bilbo's roof, it was a genuine accident! But he did such a good job of acting through it that they kept it in.

19. Aragorn is pretty handy with a sword!

Well, we knew this! But the actor who plays him studied swordfighting from experts, and insisted on using a real sword during fiming, and not fake ones like everyone else did. Cor!

20. Bilbo's floor is magnetic!

When they built Bilbo's house, they included a special magnetic floor - so that when the Ring fell it wouldn't bounce. You wouldn't want to lose your precious underneath a cupboard, would you?