Orc

An orc (sometimes spelled ork; /ɔːrk/, adjective: orkish[1][2])[3] is a fictional humanoid monster like a goblin. Orcs were brought into modern usage by the fantasy writings of J. R. R. Tolkien, especially The Lord of the Rings. In Tolkien's works, orcs are a brutish, aggressive, ugly, and malevolent race of monsters, contrasting with the benevolent Elves. There is a suggestion, among several somewhat contradictory origin stories, that they are a corrupted race of elves.[4]

An orc from Warhammer Fantasy

Mythological monsters with names similar to "orc" can be found in the Old English poem Beowulf, in Early Modern poetry, and in Northern European folk tales and fairy tales. Tolkien stated that he took the name from Beowulf.[T 1] The orc appears on lists of imaginary creatures in two of Charles Kingsley's mid-1860s novels.

Tolkien's concept of orcs has been adapted into the fantasy fiction of other authors, and into games of many different genres such as Dungeons & Dragons, Magic: The Gathering, and Warcraft.

Etymology
Latin orcus is glossed as Old English "orc, þyrs ꝉ hel-deofol" ("Goblin, spectre or hell-devil") in the 10th century Cleopatra Glossaries.

The word orc probably derives from the Latin word/name Orcus.[5]

The term orcus is glossed as "orc, þyrs, oððe hel-deofol"[lower-alpha 1] ("Goblin, spectre, or hell-devil") in the 10th century Old English Cleopatra Glossaries, about which Thomas Wright wrote, "Orcus was the name for Pluto, the god of the infernal regions, hence we can easily understand the explanation of hel-deofol. Orc, in Anglo-Saxon, like thyrs, means a spectre, or goblin."[6][7][lower-alpha 2]

The term is used just once in Beowulf (in the sense of a monstrous being[lower-alpha 3]), as the plural compound orcneas, one of the tribes alongside the elves and ettins (giants) condemned by God:

þanon untydras ealle onwocon
eotenas ond ylfe ond orcneas
swylce gigantas þa wið gode wunnon
lange þrage he him ðæs lean forgeald
—Beowulf, Fitt I, vv. 111–14[9]
Thence all evil broods were born,
ogres and elves and evil spirits
—the giants also, who long time fought with God,
for which he gave them their reward
—John R. Clark Hall, tr. (1901)[10]
Beowulf's eotenas ond ylfe ond orcneas, "ogres and elves and devil-corpses", inspiring Tolkien to create orcs and other races

Orcneas is translated "evil spirits" above, but its meaning is uncertain. Frederick Klaeber suggested it consisted of orc < L. orcus "the underworld" + neas "corpses", to which the translation "evil spirits" failed to do justice.[11][lower-alpha 4] It is generally supposed to contain an element -né, cognate to Gothic naus and Old Norse nár, both meaning 'corpse'.[5][lower-alpha 5] If *orcné is to be glossed as orcus 'corpse', then the compound word can be construed as "devil-corpse",[13] or "corpse from Orcus (i.e. the underworld)".[11][15] Hence orc-neas may have possibly been some sort of walking dead monster, a product of ancient necromancy,[11] or even be flat out called zombies,[13][14] to use a efamiliar modern term from popular culture.

Later development

The word "orc" or "ork" (var. "orque", "orke") came into usage in the Early Modern English language, in the late 16th century according to the Oxford English Dictionary.[16] J. R. R. Tolkien who was a contributor to the Oxford English Dictionary

This "orc, ork" in the first sense, referring vaguely to some sea monster (not necessarily killer whale)[16] was a word that Tolkien himself supposed was not related to his orc,[1] as stated in his letter[T 1] (see quote under §Stated etymology).

But the word in the second sense of "devouring monster, ogre" cannot be ruled out as irrelevant to Tolkien[18] since the dictionary suggests the word is perhaps etymologically "derived or influenced by L. orcus and Romanic orco [meaning 'ogre']" and notes that comparison to "orcþyrs oððe heldeofol [sic]"[19] and Beowulf's orcneas are warranted,[16] these being the Old English sources for "orc" that Tolkien specifically identified[1] (§Stated etymology)).[lower-alpha 6] and the aforementioned Old English gloss (þyrs or heldeofol) may be etymologically relevant as well.[lower-alpha 7][16]

One early usage is from Samuel Holland's 1656 work Don Zara del Fogo quoted as: "Who at one stroke didst pare away three heads from off the shoulders of an Orke, begotten by an Incubus".[16][lower-alpha 8]

There was a third sense to "orc" meaning "a large cask or a vessel", but it became obsolete by the 20th century. J. R. R. Tolkien who was a contributor to the Oxford English Dictionary had studied the three definition under this heading, so remarks philologist Roberta Frank, and "Tolkien (with some help from Walt Disney)" instrumental in keeping the first two meanings finding currency in popular culture.[17]

Tolkien
Tolkien wrote that his orcs were influenced by the goblins in George MacDonald's 1872 The Princess and the Goblin.[T 1] Illustration "The goblins fell back a little when he began, and made horrible grimaces" by Jessie Willcox Smith, 1920

Stated etymology

Tolkien began the more modern use of the English term "orc" to denote a race of evil, humanoid creatures. His earliest Elvish dictionaries include the entry Ork (orq-) "monster", "ogre", "demon", together with orqindi and "ogresse". He sometimes used the plural form orqui in his early texts.[lower-alpha 9] He stated that the Elvish words for orc were derived from a root ruku, "fear, horror"; in Quenya, orco, plural orkor; in Sindarin orch, plurals yrch and Orchoth (as a class).[T 2][T 1] They had similar names in other Middle-earth languages: uruk in Black Speech;[T 1] in the language of the Drúedain gorgûn, "ork-folk"; in Khuzdul rukhs, plural rakhâs; and in the language of Rohan and in the Common Speech, orka.[T 2]

Tolkien stated in a letter to the novelist Naomi Mitchison that his orcs had been influenced by George MacDonald's The Princess and the Goblin.[T 1] He explained that his "orc" was "derived from Old English orc 'demon', but only because of its phonetic suitability",[T 1] and

I originally took the word from Old English orc (Beowulf 112 orc-neas and the gloss orc: þyrs ('ogre'), heldeofol ('hell-devil')).[lower-alpha 10] This is supposed not to be connected with modern English orc, ork, a name applied to various sea-beasts of the dolphin order".[T 3][1]

Tolkien also observed a similarity with the Latin word orcus, noting that "the word used in translation of Q[uenya] urko, S[indarin] 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."[T 2]

Description

Orcs are of human shape, and of varying size;[T 4] in The Hobbit they are called "goblins", though Thorin Oakenshield's Elvish sword from Gondolin is named as "Orcrist, Goblin-cleaver, but the goblins called it simply Biter".[T 5] They are depicted as ugly and filthy, with a taste for human flesh. They are fanged, bow-legged and long-armed. Most are small and avoid daylight.[T 6]

An orc mask
The film producer
Peter Jackson had an orc modelled on the Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein after a disagreement.[25]

By the Third Age, a new breed of orc had emerged, the Uruk-hai, larger and more powerful, and no longer afraid of daylight.[T 6] Orcs eat meat, including the flesh of Men, and may indulge in cannibalism: in The Two Towers, Grishnákh, an orc from Mordor, claims that the Isengard orcs eat orc-flesh. Whether that is true or spoken in malice is uncertain: an orc flings Peregrin Took stale bread and a "strip of raw dried flesh... the flesh of he dared not guess what creature".[T 6]

The orcs from Mordor speak the Black Speech, a language invented for them by Sauron, while those from Isengard speak other tongues; to understand each other, they use the Common Speech (Westron), such as Pippin overheard and understood.[T 6][26]

Half-orcs appear in The Lord of the Rings, created by interbreeding of orcs and Men;[T 7] they were able to go in sunlight.[T 6] The "sly Southerner" in The Fellowship of the Ring looks "more than half like a goblin";[T 8] similar but more orc-like hybrids appear in The Two Towers "man-high, but with goblin-faces, sallow, leering, squint-eyed."[T 9]

In Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings films, the actors playing orcs are made up with masks designed to make them look evil. After a disagreement with the "notorious" Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein, Jackson had one of the masks made to resemble Weinstein "as a sort of fuck you."[25]

In-fiction origins: a dilemma

Orcs presented Tolkien with a dilemma. He attempted to resolve this by proposing several semi-contradictory theories for their origins. In The Tale of Tinúviel, orcs originate as "foul broodlings of Melkor who fared abroad doing his evil work".[T 10] In The Silmarillion, orcs are East Elves (Avari) enslaved, tortured, and bred by Morgoth (as Melkor became known);[T 11] they "multiplied" like Elves and Men. Tolkien stated in a 1962 letter to a Mrs. Munsby that orc-females must have existed.[27] In The Fall of Gondolin Morgoth made them of slime by sorcery, "bred from the heats and slimes of the earth".[T 12] Or, they were "beasts of humanized shape", possibly, Tolkien wrote, Elves mated with beasts, and later Men.[T 13] Or again, Tolkien noted, they could have been fallen Maiar, perhaps a kind called Boldog, like lesser Balrogs; or corrupted Men.[T 7]

Shippey writes that the orcs in The Lord of the Rings were almost certainly created just to equip Middle-earth with "a continual supply of enemies over whom one need feel no compunction",[28] or in Tolkien's words from The Monsters and the Critics "the infantry of the old war" ready to be slaughtered.[28] Shippey states that all the same, orcs share the human concept of good and evil, with a familiar sense of morality, though he notes that, like many people, orcs are quite unable to apply their morals to themselves. In his view, Tolkien, as a Catholic, took it as a given that "evil cannot make, only mock", so orcs could not have an equal and opposite morality to that of men or elves.[4] In a 1954 letter, Tolkien wrote that orcs were "fundamentally a race of 'rational incarnate' creatures, though horribly corrupted, if no more so than many Men to be met today."[T 14] Robert T. Tally wrote in Mythlore that despite the uniform presentation of orcs as "loathsome, ugly, cruel, feared, and especially terminable", "Tolkien could not resist the urge to flesh out and 'humanize' these inhuman creatures from time to time", in the process giving them their own morality.[29] Shippey notes that in The Two Towers, the orc Gorbag disapproves of the "regular elvish trick"–an immoral act–of seeming to abandon a comrade, as he wrongly supposes Sam Gamgee has done with Frodo Baggins. Shippey describes the implied view of evil as Boethian, that evil is the absence of good. He notes, however, that Tolkien did not agree with that point of view; Tolkien believed that evil had to be actively fought, with war if necessary, something that Shippey describes as representing the Manichean position, that evil coexists with good and is at least equally powerful.[30]

The origins of orcs: the Catholic Tolkien's dilemma
Created evil Like animals Created good, but fallen
Origin of orcs
according to Tolkien		 "Brooded" by Morgoth[T 10] "Beasts of humanized shape"[T 13] Fallen Maiar, or corrupted Men/Elves[T 11][T 7]
Moral implication Orcs are wholly evil (unlike Men) and can be slaughtered without compunction[28] Orcs have no morality, no power of speech, are not sentient Orcs have morality just like Men[30][29]
Resulting problem Orcs like Gorbag have a moral sense (even if they can't keep to it) and can speak, which conflicts with their being wholly evil or not even sentient. Since evil cannot make, only mock, orcs can't have an equal and opposite morality to Men.[29][4] It's wrong just to slaughter them, then

Debated racism
Imagemap with clickable links of Tolkien's moral geography of Middle-earth, according to John Magoun[31]

The possibility of racism in Tolkien's descriptions of orcs has been debated. In a private letter, Tolkien describes orcs as:[T 15]

squat, broad, flat-nosed, sallow-skinned, with wide mouths and slant eyes: in fact degraded and repulsive versions of the (to Europeans) least lovely Mongol-types.[T 15]

O'Hehir describes orcs as "a subhuman race bred by Morgoth and/or Sauron (although not created by them) that is morally irredeemable and deserves only death. They are dark-skinned and slant-eyed, and although they possess reason, speech, social organization and, as Shippey mentions, a sort of moral sensibility, they are inherently evil."[32] He notes Tolkien's own description of them (quoted above), saying it could scarcely be more revealing as a representation of the "Other", and states "it is also the product of his background and era, like most of our inescapable prejudices. At the level of conscious intention, he was not a racist or an anti-Semite" and mentions Tolkien's letters to this effect.[32] The literary critic Jenny Turner, writing in the London Review of Books, endorses Andrew O'Hehir's comment on Salon.com that orcs are "by design and intention a northern European's paranoid caricature of the races he has dimly heard about".[33][32]

The scholar of English literature Robert Tally describes the orcs as a demonized enemy, despite (he writes) Tolkien's own objections to demonization of the enemy in the two World Wars.[34] In a letter to his son, Christopher, who was serving in the RAF in the Second World War, Tolkien wrote of orcs as appearing on both sides of the conflict:

Yes, I think the orcs as real a creation as anything in 'realistic' fiction ... only in real life they are on both sides, of course. For 'romance' has grown out of 'allegory', and its wars are still derived from the 'inner war' of allegory in which good is on one side and various modes of badness on the other. In real (exterior) life men are on both sides: which means a motley alliance of orcs, beasts, demons, plain naturally honest men, and angels.[T 16]

John Magoun, writing in the J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia, states that Middle-earth has a "fully expressed moral geography".[31] Any moral bias towards a north-western geography, however, was directly denied by Tolkien in a letter to Charlotte and Denis Plimmer, who had recently interviewed him in 1967:

Auden has asserted that for me 'the North is a sacred direction'. That is not true. The North-west of Europe, where I (and most of my ancestors) have lived, has my affection, as a man's home should. I love its atmosphere, and know more of its histories and languages than I do of other parts; but it is not 'sacred', nor does it exhaust my affections. I do have, for instance, a particular fondness for the Latin language, and among its descendants for Spanish. That it is untrue for my story, a mere reading of the synopses should show. The North was the seat of the fortresses of the Devil [ie. Morgoth].[T 17]

Peter Jackson's film versions of Tolkien's orcs have been compared to wartime caricatures of the Japanese (here, an American propaganda poster).[35]

Scholars of English literature William N. Rogers II and Michael R. Underwood note that a widespread element of late 19th century Western culture was fear of moral decline and degeneration; this led to eugenics.[36] In The Two Towers, the Ent Treebeard says:[T 18]

It is a mark of evil things that came in the Great Darkness that they cannot abide the Sun; but Saruman's orcs can endure it, even if they hate it. I wonder what he has done? Are they Men he has ruined, or has he blended the races of orcs and Men? That would be a black evil![T 18]

The Germanic studies scholar Sandra Ballif Straubhaar however argues against the "recurring accusations" of racism, stating that "a polycultured, polylingual world is absolutely central" to Middle-earth, and that readers and filmgoers will easily see that.[37] The historian and Tolkien scholar Jared Lobdell likewise disagreed with any notions of racism inherent or latent in Tolkien's works, and wondered "if there were a way of writing epic fantasy about a battle against an evil spirit and his monstrous servants without its being subject to speculation of racist intent".[38]

The journalist David Ibata writes that the interpretations of orcs in Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings films look much like "the worst depictions of the Japanese drawn by American and British illustrators during World War II."[35]

Other fiction

As a response to the type-casting of orcs as generic evil characters or antagonists, some novels portray events from the point of view of the orcs, or make them more sympathetic characters. Mary Gentle's 1992 novel Grunts! presents orcs as generic infantry, used as metaphorical cannon-fodder.[26] A series of books by Stan Nicholls, Orcs: First Blood, focuses on the conflicts between orcs and humans from the orcs' point of view.[39] In Terry Pratchett's Discworld series, orcs are close to extinction; in his Unseen Academicals it is said that "When the Evil Emperor wanted fighters he got some of the Igors to turn goblins into orcs" to be used as weapons in a Great War, "encouraged" by whips and beatings.[40]

In games

Orcs based on The Lord of the Rings have become a fixture of fantasy fiction and role-playing games. In the fantasy tabletop role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons, orcs were among the earliest creatures introduced in the game, and were largely based upon those described by Tolkien.[41] The D&D orcs are a tribal race of hostile and bestial humanoids with muscular frames, large canine teeth and snouts rather than human-like noses.[42] The orc appears in the first edition Monster Manual (1977), where it is described as a fiercely competitive bully, a tribal creature often living underground.[43] The mythology and attitudes of the orcs are described in detail in Dragon #62 (June 1982), in Roger E. Moore's article, "The Half-Orc Point of View",[44] and the orc is further detailed in Paizo Publishing's 2008 book Classic Monsters Revisited.[45]

Games Workshop's Warhammer universe features cunning and brutal Orks in a fantasy setting, who are driven not so much by a need to do evil as to obtain fulfilment through the act of war.[46] In the Warhammer 40,000, a series of science-fiction games, they are a green-skinned alien species, called 'Orks'.[47] Orcs are an important race in Warcraft, a high fantasy franchise created by Blizzard Entertainment. Several orc characters from the Warcraft universe are playable heroes in the crossover multiplayer game Heroes of the Storm.[48] In the Elder Scrolls series, many orcs or Orsimer are skilled blacksmiths.[49] In Hasbro's Heroscape products, orcs come from the pre-historic planet Grut.[50] They are blue-skinned, with prominent tusks or horns.[51] Several orc champions ride prehistoric animals (including a Tyrannosaurus rex,[52] a Velociraptor[53] and sabre-tooth tigers, known as Swogs).[54] The Skylander Voodood from the first game in the series, Spyro's Adventure, is an orc.[55] The 1993 Wizards of the Coast collectible card game Magic: The Gathering involves numerous orc cards.[56]

Real world conflicts

Ukrainians have used the term "orcs" (Ukrainian: орки, romanized: orki) to demonize[57] and dehumanize[57] Russian forces and tactics. Use of the word increased when Russian forces invaded Ukraine in 2022.[58]

See also
  • Haradrim – the dark-skinned "Southrons" who fought for Sauron alongside the orcs
  • Troll (Middle-earth) – large humanoids of great strength and poor intellect, also used by Sauron

Notes
  1. Here: "orcus   [orc].. þrys ꝉ heldeofol" is the redaction given by Pheifer 1974, p. 37n but þrys appears to be a mistranscription for þyrs. The original text uses "ꝉ", the scribal abbreviation for Latin vel meaning "or", which Wright has silently expanded as Anglo-Saxon oððe.
  2. The Corpus Glossary (Corpus Christi College MS. 144, late 8th to early 9th century) has the two glosses: "orcus, orc" and "orcus, ðyrs, hel-diobul.Pheifer 1974, p. 37n
  3. The plural orcas is used twice in the sense of "vessel" or goblet at vv. 2760, 3047 in Beowulf.[8]
  4. Klaeber here takes orcus to be the world and not the god, as does Bosworth & Toller 1898, p. 764: "orc, es; m. The infernal regions (orcus)", though the latter seems to predicate on synthesizing the compound "Orcþyrs" by altering the reading of the Cleopatra glossaries as given by Wright's Voc. ii. that he sources.
  5. The usual Old English word for corpse is líc, but -né appears in nebbed 'corpse bed',[12] and in dryhtné 'dead body of a warrior', where dryht is a military unit.
  6. The dictionary also suggests that its "ogre" entry should be consulted as well.[16] Incidentally, the English word "ogre", from the French, might have been formed by fairy tale compiler Charles Perrault from a hypothetical Italian *orgo,[20] whose standard Italian form is orco for 'ogre'.[21] Perrault borrowed stories from the 16th-century Italian writers Giovanni Francesco Straparola [22] and (less likely[23]) Giambattista Basile.[22] But Straparola's Puss n' Boots did not have a magical ogre introduced by Perrault.[23] Basile did write of ogres which he called uerco in the Naples dialect, and also derived from the Latin Orcus, (cf. Lo Cuento dell'Uerco and Peruonto)[24][23]
  7. The OED gives: orcþyrs, oððe heldeofol "orc-giant or hell-devil", i.e., adopts the reading of orcþyrs as a compound.
  8. The work was a pastiche of Spanish romances such as Don Quixote.
  9. Parma Eldalamberon volume XII: "Quenya Lexicon Quenya Dictionary": 'Ork' ('orq-') monster, ogre, demon. "orqindi" ogresse. [The original reading of the second entry was >'orqinan' ogresse.< Perhaps the intended meaning of the earlier form was 'region of ogres'; cf. 'kalimban', 'Hisinan'. 'The Poetic and Mythologic Words of Eldarissa' gives 'ork' 'ogre, giant' and 'orqin' 'ogress', which may be a feminine form. ...]"
  10. In the Cleopatra Glossaries, Folio 69 verso; the entry is illustrated above.

References

Primary
This list identifies each item's location in Tolkien's writings.
  1. Carpenter 1981, #144 to Naomi Mitchison 25 April 1954
  2. Tolkien 1994, Appendix C "Elvish names for the Orcs", pp. 289–391
  3. Tolkien, J. R. R. (2005). Hammond, Wayne G.; Scull, Christina (eds.). Nomenclature of The Lord of the Rings (PDF). The Lord of the Rings: A Reader's Companion. New York City: HarperCollins. ISBN 978-0-00-720907-1.
  4. Tolkien 1955 book 6, ch. 1, "The Tower of Cirith Ungol"
  5. Tolkien 1937, ch. 4 "Over Hill and Under Hill"
  6. Tolkien 1954, Book 3, ch. 3 "The Uruk-hai"
  7. Tolkien 1993, "Myths transformed", text X
  8. Tolkien 1954a, Book 1, ch. 11 "A Knife in the Dark"
  9. Tolkien 1954, Book 3, ch. 9 "Flotsam and Jetsam"
  10. Tolkien 1984b, "The Tale of Tinúviel"
  11. Tolkien 1977, p. 40
  12. Tolkien 1984b, p. 159
  13. Tolkien 1993, "Myths transformed", text VIII
  14. Carpenter 1981, letter 153 to Peter Hastings, draft, September 1954
  15. Carpenter 1981, #210
  16. Carpenter 1981, #71
  17. Carpenter 1981, #294
  18. Tolkien 1954, Book 3, Ch. 4, "Treebeard"

Secondary
  1. Karthaus-Hunt, Beatrix (2002), "'And What Happened After': How J.R.R. Tolkien Visualized, and Other Artists Re-Visualized, the Denizens of Middle-earth", in Westfahl, Gary; Slusser, George Edgar; Plummer, Kathleen Church (eds.), Unearthly Visions: Approaches to Science Fiction and Fantasy Art, Greenwood Press, pp. 138n, ISBN 0313317054
  2. Lobdell (1975), p. 171.
  3. "Orc". Cambridge Dictionary. Retrieved 26 January 2020.
  4. Shippey 2005, pp. 362, 438 (chapter 5, note 14).
  5. Shippey, Tom (1979). Salu, Mary; Farrell, Robert T. (eds.). Creation from Philology in the Lord of the Rings. J. R. R. Tolkien, scholar and storyteller: Essays in Memoriam. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press. p. 291. ISBN 978-0-80141-038-3.
  6. Wright, Thomas (1873). A second volume of vocabularies. privately printed. p. 63.
  7. Pheifer, J. D. (1974). Old English Glosses in the Épinal-Erfurt Glossary. Oxford University Press. pp. 37, 106. ISBN 978-0-19-811164-1.(Repr. Sandpaper Books, 1998 ISBN 0-19-811164-9), Gloss #698: orcus   orc (Épinal); orci   orc (Erfurt).
  8. Frank, Roberta (1997), "Old English Orc 'cup, goblet': a Latin Loanword with Attitude", in Roberts, Jane; Nelson, Janet Laughland; Godden, Malcolm (eds.), Alfred the Wise: Studies in Honour of Janet Bately on the Occasion of Her Sixty-fifth Birthday, Boydell & Brewer Ltd, p. 20, ISBN 9780859915151
  9. Klaeber 1950, p. 5.
  10. Klaeber 1950, p. 25
  11. Klaeber 1950, p. 183: "orcneas: 'evil spirits' does not bring out all the meaning. Orcneas is compounded of orc (from the Lat. orcus "the underworld" or Hades) and neas "corpses". Necromancy was practised among the ancient Germani and was familiar among the pagan Norsemen who revived it in England when they invaded".
  12. Brehaut, Patricia Kathleen (1961). Moot passages in Beowulf (Thesis). Stanford, California: Stanford University. p. 8.
  13. Shippey, Tom (2000). J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of the Century. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. p. 88. ISBN 9780547524436.
  14. Beowulf: A Dual-language Edition. Translated by Chickering, Howell D. Anchor books. 1977. p. 284. ISBN 9780385062138.
  15. Wrenn, Charles Leslie (1958) ed. Beowulf with the Finnesburg Fragmen. London: Harrap. apud Chickering[14]
  16. "Orc" Oxford English Dictionary ≈ "orc" , s. v. Murray, J. A. H. ed. (1909) A New English Dictionary on Historical Principle, Vol. VII, Part II. p. 177.
  17. Frank (1997), p. 23.
  18. Cf. end of Frank's essay.[17]
  19. Frank notes: "with OED citations, one wrong".[17]. Probably orcþyrs compounded into one word is not the correct reading[?].
  20. "Ogre" Oxford English Dictionary ≈ "ogre" , s. v. Murray, J. A. H. ed. (1909) A New English Dictionary on Historical Principle, Vol. VII, Part II. p. 91.
  21. Brunel, Pierre, ed. (2015). "The Ogre in Literature". Companion to Literary Myths, Heroes and Archetypes. Routledge. ISBN 9781317387138.
  22. Eisfeld, Conny (2013). A Literary and Multi-Medial Analysis of Selected Fairy Tales and Adaptations: Or: How Fairy Tales live Happily Ever After. GRIN Verlag. p. 5. ISBN 9783656363682.
  23. Barchilon, Jacques, ed. (1956). Perrault's Tales of Mother Goose: the dedication manuscript of 1695 reproduced in collotype facsimile. Vol. 1. Pierpont Morgan Library. p. 47.
  24. Canepa, Nancy L. (1999). From Court to Forest: Giambattista Basile's Lo cunto de li cunti and the birth of the literary fairy tale. Wayne State University Press. pp. 95–98, 175ff. ISBN 0814338305.
  25. Oladipo, Gloria (5 October 2021). "Lord of the Rings orc was modeled after Harvey Weinstein, Elijah Wood reveals". The Guardian. Retrieved 1 December 2022.
  26. Canavan, A. P. (2012). ""Let's hunt some orc!": Reevaluating the Monstrosity of Orcs". New York Review of Science Fiction. Retrieved 7 March 2020. A version of this essay was presented at the International Conference on the Fantastic in 2012.
  27. "The Science of Middle-earth: Sex and the Single Orc". TheOneRing.net. Retrieved 29 May 2009.
  28. Shippey 2005, p. 265.
  29. Tally, Robert T. Jr. (2010). "Let Us Now Praise Famous Orcs: Simple Humanity in Tolkien's Inhuman Creatures". Mythlore. 29 (1). article 3.
  30. Shippey 2001, pp. 131–133.
  31. Magoun, John F. G. (2006). "South, The". In Drout, Michael D. C. (ed.). The J. R. R. Tolkien Encyclopedia: Scholarship and Critical Assessment. Routledge. pp. 622–623. ISBN 1-135-88034-4.
  32. O'Hehir, Andrew (6 June 2001). "A curiously very great book". Salon.com. Retrieved 3 March 2020.
  33. Turner, Jenny (15 November 2001). "Reasons for Liking Tolkien". London Review of Books. 23 (22).
  34. Tally, Robert (2019). "Demonizing the Enemy, Literally: Tolkien, Orcs, and the Sense of the World Wars". Humanities. 8 (1): 54. doi:10.3390/h8010054. ISSN 2076-0787.
  35. Ibata, David (12 January 2003). "'Lord' of racism? Critics view trilogy as discriminatory". The Chicago Tribune.
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