Here an Orc, There an Ork

Volume 1 Number 1 Article 3 1-15-1969 Here an Orc, There an Ork Ruth Berman Follow this and additional works at: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore Part of the Children's and Young Adult Literature Commons Recommended Citation Berman, Ruth (1969) "Here an Orc, There an Ork," Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature: Vol. 1 : No. 1 , Article 3. Available at: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol1/iss1/3 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Mythopoeic Society at SWOSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature by an authorized editor of SWOSU Digital Commons. An ADA compliant document is available upon request. For more information, please contact [email protected]. To join the Mythopoeic Society go to: http://www.mythsoc.org/join.htm Mythcon 51: A VIRTUAL “HALFLING” MYTHCON July 31 - August 1, 2021 (Saturday and Sunday) http://www.mythsoc.org/mythcon/mythcon-51.htm Mythcon 52: The Mythic, the Fantastic, and the Alien Albuquerque, New Mexico; July 29 - August 1, 2022 http://www.mythsoc.org/mythcon/mythcon-52.htm Abstract Discusses several homophones of “orc” in fantastic literature as possible sources for Tolkien. Additional Keywords Baum, L. Frank; Beowulf; Blake, William; Milton, John; Tolkien, J.R.R.—Characters—Orcs; Tolkien, J.R.R.—Characters—Orcs—Etymology This article is available in Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol1/iss1/3 8 These three writers are each "mythopoeic” in a different sense. Tolkien creates a self-sufficient myth; Lewis im itates a primary mythos in the creation of a secondary myth; and Williams weaves primary myths into a new combination which is not inde- pendant of the priamry world. I predict that even in The Mytho- poeic Society he w ill always be the least popular of the three; while Lewis can be enjoyed by all but the most virulently anti- Christian reader, and Tolkien by any reader responsive to fantasy. Here an Orc, There an Ork b y Ruth Berman When I first read J.R .R . Tolkie' s The Lord of The Rings, I was startled to find "orcs." I already knew " orks" from L. Prank Baum's The Scarecrow of Oz. But the orc and the ork were very different creatures, and I put it down to coincidence, sup- posing both men had independently hit on the same nonsense syllable. But then I ran across the same word in John M ilton's epic, Paradise Lost. In Book XI, lines 831-835, he has the angel Michael describing to Adam, after the Fall, how the Mount of Paradise w ill be dislocated at the time of Noah’s Flood: pushed by the horned floud, With all his verdue spoil'd, and Trees adrift Down the great River to the op’ning Gulf , And there take root an I l and salt and bare, The haunt of Seales and O rcs, and Sea-mews clang. ML1 8 There were also, I learned orcs in Tasso's Giurusalemme Liberata (Jerusalem Liberated), one of the Italian epics which influenced Milton . There too, orcs were an undescribed sort of sea-monster. M ilton’s orc, I thought, might lie behind Baum’s Ork. The Orks of Orkland are friendly, cheerful creatures -- a species of bird with four legs and atrophied, balloon-like wings (the actual motive power for an Ork's flight comes from its ta il, which is a propellor -- I doubt that the arrangement is aerodynamically sound, but the Orks seem to manage) . Baum’s h e r o in e ,Trot, and her uncle, Cap’n B ill, discovered the Ork while exploring a grotto opening off the sea. By rights, an orc ought to be more like a seal than a seamew (seagull), but Baum needed his own sort of orc . Having realized that "orc" was actually an En glish word , I went to the Oxford English D ictionary, a giant reference book that gives the definitions of words in order of historical de- velopment. The OED informed me that orc, or ork, was from the L a t in o r c a , a kind of whale. Also from Old Norse orkn, a kind o f s e a l . D efinition one: a cetacean of the genus Qrca, family D el- phinidae, especially the killer whale (Orca gladiator, G r e y . Delphinuss Qrca, Linnaeus. By earlier authors applied, after the medieval Latin writers, to more than one vaguely identified ferocious sea-monster. D efiniton two: sometimes more vaguely (perhaps derived from or influenced by Latin Orcus, Romanic orco, Italian orco, demon, monster, from Latin Orcus, Hades, the god of the infernal regions -- see ogre). I dutifully saw orge and discovered that derivation of orge is unknown, but it may come from Latin Orcus (via French -- the earliest use of the word given in the OED is Charles Perraukt's Contes de ma mere oye -- Mother Goose Stories -- in 1697, although someone has written in the margin of the UCLA li- brary copy I consulted for this article, "ogre occurs in Old French Chretien de Troyes, Perceval, about 1190"). Tolkien as a philologist, is probably aware of the possible connection be- tween orc and orge — and his orcs do seem rather orgeish, although they apparently do not eat small children (the distin- guishing characteristic of the average orge). Back at the defintion, I was instructed to see also Old English orc yrs o e heldeofal -- "orc-giant or hell-devil,” also orcneas in Beowulf 112. So I saw Beowulf (a poem Tolkien knows thoroughly -- see his Beowul f and the C ritics) and discovered that line 112 mention- ed as being among the descendants of Cain "eotenas and ylfe and oreneas” -- eotens and elves and orcs ("orcneas" is the plural, and the word does not occur eleswhere, but its singualr would be orcen). Eotens — also known as etens or ettins — are M L 1 10 giants (the giants in C.S . L e w is' The Silver Chair lived on Ettinsmoor). Tolkien, I suppose , justified his calling his humanoid, and quite unseal -an d unwhale-like monsters “orcs," because the Old English orcens would seem to be humanoid monsters (being grouped w ith giant and elves, as they are. Baum and Tolkien a r e about as unlike as two authors can be who work in the same genre: the one so obviously American, the one so obvously English; the one writing about a utopia and seeming to believe in the possibility of our reaching a Utopia someday, the other writing of a world as tormented as our own; the one heartily in favor o f science and using white magic as a kind of super-science, the other suspicious of science and using white magic as a kind of telepathic, emotional communion with others (as with the visions Galadriel showed Frodo, or the elf- rope that held or loosed at Sam's need -- although Gandalf 's tracks with fire are like the purely physical wonders of Oz-magic). But both wrote fairy-tales and wrote them with respect for the form and interest in its past, and so cannot avoid many small points of sim ilarity despite their basic differneces. Footnote: and then, of course, there is science fiction fan Johnny Chamber's cartoon character, the L ittle Green Dino- saur. The LGD, when frightened or startled, exclaims "Orc!" Bu t at that point I exclaim “Coincidence!" and have done with it. O.K . --- After Steve Reeves and his vikings rescue y o u from the forest o u t l a w s , you set out to rescue the princess from S a u r o n , who's holding her f o r ran so m .. M L 1.

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