Orc

Orc from stage production of J.R.R. Tolkein's Return of the King

A comic fantasy orc.

Orc is a word used to refer to various tough and warlike humanoid creatures in various fantasy settings, particularly in the stories of Middle-earth written by J. R. R. Tolkien and derivative fictions. Orcs are often portrayed as misshapen humanoids with brutal, warmongering, sadistic, yet cowardly tendencies, although some sources portray them as a proud warrior race with a strong sense of honour. They are variously portrayed as physically stronger or weaker than humans, but always high in numbers. They often ride wolves or wargs. In many role-playing and computer games, though not in Tolkien's works, Orcs have green skin (earning the name "Greenskins" in most games) and have faces that resemble a cross between a pig and a primate. Ogre is sometimes used as a synonym or refers to a similar creature within the fiction.

Etymology of the word "orc"

The modern use of the English word "orc" to denote a race of evil, humanoid creatures begins with J.R.R. Tolkien.

Tolkien's earliest elvish dictionaries include the entry "Ork (orq-) monster, ogre, demon" together with "orqindi ogresse." Tolkien sometimes used the plural form orqui in his early texts.

Tolkien sometimes, particularly in The Hobbit, used the word "goblin" instead of "orc" to describe the same type of creature. Later in his life he expressed an intention to change the spelling of "orc" to "ork" in The Silmarillion but the only place where that spelling surfaced in his lifetime was in the published version of The Adventures of Tom Bombadil, in the poem Bombadil Goes Boating ("I'll call the orks on you: that'll send you running!"). In the posthumously published Silmarillion, the spelling "orcs" was retained.

Old English influence

Tolkien's own statements about the real-world origins of his use of the word "orc" are as follows:

• "the word is as far as I am concerned actually derived from Old English orc 'demon', but only because of its phonetic suitability"

• "I originally took the word from Old English orc (Beowulf 112 orc-neas and the gloss orc = þyrs ('ogre'), heldeofol ('hell-devil'). This is supposed not to be connected with modern English orc, ork, a name applied to various sea-beasts of the dolphin order."

• "The word used in translation of Q urko, S orch is Orc. But that is because of the similarity of the ancient English word orc, 'evil spirit or bogey', to the Elvish words. There is possibly no connection between them. The English word is now generally supposed to be derived from Latin Orcus."

The word *orcné (attested in the plural orcnéas) is a hapax legomenon in the poem Beowulf. It is generally supposed to contain an element -né, cognate to Gothic naus and Old Norse nár, both meaning "corpse." The usual Old English word for "corpse" is líc, but -né appears in dryhtné "dead body of a warrior," where dryht is the name of a military unit (vaguely translated "band," "host," etc.). In *orcné, if it is to be glossed as "orcus-corpse" the meaning may be "corpse from Orcus (i.e. the underworld)" or "devil-corpse," understood as some sort of walking dead. This etymology is plausible, but remains conjectural. The word orc appears in two other locations in Beowulf, but in both cases refers to cups of precious metal found in a treasure-hoard.

Old English þyrs, given as a gloss for Latin orcus, is cognate to Old Norse þurs "giant, ogre" (both from Common Germanic *thurisaz, in Norse mythology referring to one of the monstrous descendants of the giant Ymir. But it is to be noted in connection with Tolkien's reference to a gloss orc=þyrs that while there is an entry in an 11th century English glossary which implies such an equivalence ("[Latin] orcus [Old English] orc þyrs oððe heldeofol," this is in fact a conflation of two glosses in an earlier glossary of the 7th century, found in two different places, namely: "[Latin] orcus [Old English] orc" and "[Latin] orcus [Old English] þyrs oððe heldiubol." The first of these two glosses is in a section devoted to household implements, and orcus is, in that place, a corruption of Latin urceus "jug, pitcher" or of orca "pot, jar." The word orc in these glosses only has the meaning "cup"; it is descended from an early Germanic borrowing from urceus, related to Gothic aurkeis "cup."

Tolkien's assumption that orc and þyrs had the same meaning was therefore an error, though one shared for several decades by other scholars, as it had entered into some commonly-used dictionaries of Old English (e.g. Bosworth and Toller's "An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary" (1898), corrected in later editions).

Early modern usage

As far as what otherwise might have influenced Tolkien, the OED lists a 1656 use (see below) of an English word ‘orke’ in a way reminiscent of giants, ogres and the like. It is presumed that such usage (orke=ogre) came into English via fairy tales from the continent, especially from Charles Perrault (17th cent. France), who himself borrowed most of his stories (and developed his 'ogre') from the 16th century Italian writers Giovanni Francesco Straparola and Giambattista Basile. (Straparola [c. 1440–c. 1557] has been credited with introducing to Europe the literary form of the 'fairy tale'.)

Basile (d. 1632) wrote in the Naples dialect (though Naples was, at that time, controlled by Spain), claiming simply to be passing on oral folktales from his region that he'd collected over the years. In at least a dozen or more tales, Basile used 'huorco' (or 'huerco', 'uerco') which is the Neapolitan form of ‘orco’ [modern It. ‘giant’, 'monster'] to describe a large, speaking, mannish beast (hairy and tusked) that lived away in a dark forest or garden, and that might be evil (capturing/eating humans), indifferent or even benevolent - all depending on the tale. (See especially his tales Peruonto and Lo Cuento dell'Uerco.)

But the 1656 English use of 'orke' (forty-one years before Perrault published his Mother Goose tales) comes from a fairy-tale by Samuel Holland entitled Don Zara, which is a pastiche and parody of fantastical Spanish romances like Don Quixote, and presumably is populated by beasts and monsters common to them. (Note: Straparola was translated into Spanish in 1583. Independent of this, there is in Spain to this day the folktale of the ‘huerco’ or ‘güercu’, which is a harbinger of impending death; a shade in the form of the person about to die.)

From under the OED entry ‘orc’:

• 1605 J. SYLVESTER tr. G. de S. Du Bartas Deuine Weekes & Wks. (II. i. 337) “Insatiate Orque, that euen at one repast, Almost all creatures in the World would waste.” [seeming ‘orca’ usage]
• 1656 S. HOLLAND Don Zara (I. i. 6) “Who at one stroke didst pare away three heads from off the shoulders of an Orke, begotten by an Incubus.” [seeming ‘ogre’ usage]
• 1854 Putnam's Monthly Mag. (Oct. 380/1) “The elves and the nickers, the orcs and the giants." [usage unclear]
• 1865 C. KINGSLEY Hereward (I. i. 71) “But beyond, things unspeakable — dragons, giants, rocs, orcs, witch-whales … ” [usage unclear]

Whether 'orke', 'ogre', 'huerco' or 'orco', the word ultimately comes from Latin Orcus, and has apparently descended by several stages through the meanings "underworld, hell," "devil," "evil creature" and at last "ogre." Note that Tolkien and the lexicons he used also attributed the origin of the doubtful Old English orc to Orcus, and that in one of his invented languages the word for "orc" also had the form orco.

Words derived from or related to Italian orco are fairly common in Mediterranean countries; in addition to Italian dialectal uerco, huerco and huorco and Spanish güercu, there is also Tyrolean ork which may be either a house gnome or a mountain spirit that acts as protector of wildlife [1]. Such creatures have little in common with Tolkien's orcs.

Tolkien, being born in 1892, would certainly have been exposed to the Mother Goose tales and the like. Whether he ever read Straparola, Basile or even Holland's Don Zara is unknown. Whatever the case, he certainly would have come across creatures (orkes and ogres) descended etymologically from L. ‘Orcus’, and not just in Beowulf – though that earliest image seems to be the one that most ‘stuck’ in his mind.

Tolkien explicitly denied any intended connection between his "orc" and the other existing English word orc, referring to the killer whale (Orcinus orca), the grampus and other cetaceans. This is a borrowing from Latin orca (used by Pliny to refer to some kind of whale, quite likely Orcinus orca).

For more on Tolkien's invented etymology of the word "orc," see Tolkien's Orcs below.

Similar words of distinct origin

The use of the word "orc" in any of its monstrous senses should not be confused with various other words that have a superficial resemblance, including Gaelic orc (a Goidelic form of Proto-Indo-European *porkos "young pig") and Norse ørkn meaning "seal" [2].

Also there's a supported theory that Orkish has an Ural-Altaic origin. Many Orkish words also derived from Ural-Altaic languages (especially from Mongolian, Turkish, and Finnish) by Tolkien.^{[citation needed]}

Blake's Orc

Orc (a proper name) is also one of the characters in the writings of William Blake.

Unlike the medieval sea beast, or Basile's (see above) & Tolkien's humanoid monster, Blake's Orc is a positive figure; the embodiment of creative passion and energy, Orc being an anagram of Cor, heart.

Tolkien's Orcs

The humanoid, non-maritime race of Orcs that exist in Middle-earth are J. R. R. Tolkien's invention. The term 'Orc' is usually capitalised in Tolkien's writing, but not necessarily in other sources. In Tolkien's writing, Orcs are of human shape, but smaller than Men, ugly, and filthy. In a private letter, Tolkien describes them as "squat, broad, flat-nosed, sallow-skinned, with wide mouths and slant eyes". Although not dim-witted, they are portrayed as dull and miserable beings, who are only able to destroy, not to create.

Orcs are first described in The Tale of Tinúviel as "foul broodlings of Melko [sic] who fared abroad doing his evil work." In The Fall of Gondolin Tolkien wrote that "all that race were bred by Melko of the subterranean heats and slime. Their hearts were of granite and their bodies deformed; foul their faces which smiled not, but their laugh that of the clash of metal, and to nothing were they more fain than to aid in the basest of the purposes of Melko."

Orcs eat all manner of flesh, including human. In Chapter II of The Two Towers, a leader of an Uruk-hai battalion from Isengard claims the Orcs of Mordor are cannibals, but whether that is true or a statement spoken in malice is uncertain; what does seem certain is that, true or false, the Orcs resent that description. However, knowing what they are like and from later events, it seems likely that Orcs do eat other Orcs. Later in The Two Towers, Merry and Pippin are presented with meat by an orc after a fight occurred in which the Uruk-hai killed several orcs; the narration is vague as to what species the flesh belongs to. In the film, the famous line "Looks like meat's back on the menu, boys," occurs when an orc is killed by another in an attempt to protect their captives. Tolkien also describes them as bow-legged. They fight with ferocity (so long as a guiding 'will' [e.g., Morgoth or Sauron] compels/directs them). In some places, Tolkien describes Orcs as mainly being battle fodder (Cf. The Battles of the Fords of Isen). Orcs are used as soldiers by both the greater and lesser villains of The Lord of the Rings — Sauron and Saruman.

In some versions of his stories, Tolkien conceived Orcs to be marred Elves, enslaved by Morgoth, broken and twisted into his evil soldiers. Other versions (including notes made both early and late in Tolkien's life) have Orcs as 'parodies' or false-creations of Morgoth's that are animated solely by his evil will (or, perhaps, by his own essence diffused into each), and made intentionally to mock or spite Eru's creations — the Eldar and Edain.

Tolkien also "suggested" that Men were cross-bred with Orcs under Morgoth's lieutenant, Sauron (and possibly under Morgoth himself). The fierce black orcs known as Uruks were created in this way. The process was later repeated during the War of the Ring by Saruman, enabling him to create the "fighting" Uruk-Hai.

When writing The Hobbit, Tolkien carried over the concept of the "orc" that he had developed in writing early versions of The Silmarillion, just as he carried over references to Elves, Gondolin, and other elements of the Silmarillion. In The Hobbit, however, he mostly used the word 'goblin' for these creatures, though the word "orc" occasionally appears: e.g. when Gandalf describes the Grey Mountains as being "simply stiff with goblins, hobgoblins, and orcs of the worst description." In The Lord of the Rings, "Orc" is used predominantly to describe such creatures, and the use of the term "goblin" seems restricted to use by the Hobbits, though the term is used by others and applied to the advanced Uruk-hai.

In The Two Towers and The Return of the King, Saruman bred his own "modified" Uruk-hai. These were larger and much stronger, and could resist the sunlight.

Within Tolkien's invented languages, the Elvish words for "orc" are derived from a root ruk referring to fear and horror, from which is derived an expanded form of the root, uruk. A noun *uruku is produced from the extended root. This eventually turns into Quenya urco, plural urqui. A related word *urkō produces Sindarin orch, plural yrch. The Quenya words are said to be less specific in meaning than the Sindarin, meaning "bogey." For the specific creatures called yrch by the Sindar, the Quenya word orco, with plurals orcor and orqui, was created.

These orcs had similar names in other languages of Middle-earth: in Orkish uruk (restricted to the larger soldier-orcs), in the language of the Drúedain gorgûn, in Khuzdul rukhs, plural rakhâs, and in the language of Rohan and in the Common Speech orc.

Orcs in other fantasy works

Dungeons & Dragons Warhammer.

Places

• Insi Orc: In old Gaelic means 'Island of the Orcs' or 'Islands of the Wild Boar', later called the Orchades by Diodurus Siculus (1st century B.C.E.), called Orcades by Pliny the Elder, Orkneyjar ('Seal Islands') by the Norsemen, and finally shortened to the Orkney Islands by the Scots speakers.[3]
• Orkahaugr: Norwegian name for Maeshowe, a chambered cairn. Orkahaugr could mean 'The Howe (Mound) of the Orcs'. It could also mean Orkis' Howe, if Orkis was a person's name.
• Cape Orcas: northern tip of Scotland across the Pentland Firth, mentioned by Pliny
• Grotta dell' Orco: In Italy, an Etruscan tomb, wherein is a fresco of the underworld, Tuchulchas, and a cyclops. (see: Orcus)

External links

• 9 milestones in orcs history. Wired magazine article
• Words at Random:The Maven's word of the day: Orc
• Orcs History in Russian
• RPG.NET Article about Orcs
• Za Frûmi
• The origin of "Orkney"
• Orc Roleplaying Community Site
• Orc Magazine (Orc Parody)

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