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(TFT) Origin of the word ORC
Hmm, so if Tolkien invented it himself, then it might have a "hobbit" problem.
I wonder why nobody has ever followed it up from his estate? They did follow
up to try and protect "hobbit", I know.
Hey wait a sec! The same Wiki article you cited then goes on:
(Cut to the chase: Tolkien's estate cannot make a claim to the word, he
borrowed and perhaps modified.)
***
"I originally took the word from Old English orc (Beowulf 112 orc-neas and the
gloss orc = ~yrs ('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." (Nomenclature of The Lord of the Rings.)
***
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 'g|ercu', which
is a harbinger of impending death; a shade in the form of the person about to
die.)
>From under the OED entry 'orc':
a.. 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]
b.. 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]
c.. 1854 Putnam's Monthly Mag. (Oct. 380/1) "The elves and the nickers, the
orcs and the giants." [usage unclear]
d.. 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 g|ercu, 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.
***
----- Original Message -----
From: davidgrouchy
To: tft@brainiac.com
Sent: Friday, September 15, 2006 3:23 PM
Subject: Re: (TFT) fiction ?
"David O. Miller" <davidomiller@verizon.net> wrote: I always wondered about
the name "orc" myself.
David,
From Tolkien's own words.
David Michael Grouchy II
"the word is as far as I am concerned actually derived from Old English orc
'demon', but only because of its phonetic suitability"
-The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, #144, 25 April 1954.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orc
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