Real Orcs Don't Do Windows - Page 5
© Michael Martinez
In the earliest versions of "The Heirs of Elendil" and "The Tale of Years", there are no mentions of Uruks, which in the published book are said to have first appeared in the reign of Denethor I, Ruling Steward of Gondor. All Tolkien says of them is "in the last years of Denethor I the race of uruks, black orcs of great strength, first appeared out of Mordor, and in 2475 they swept across Ithilien and took Osgiliath...." (Lord of the Rings, Appendix A)
In Appendix F, Tolkien discussed the Orcs and the Black Speech. In the first paragraph, he wrote:
Orc is the form of the name that other races had for this foul people as it was in the language of Rohan. In Sindarin it was orch. Related, no doubt, was the word uruk of the Black Speech, though this was applied as a rule only to the great soldier-orcs that at this time issued from Mordor and Isengard. The lesser kinds were called, especially by the Uruk-hai, snaga 'slave'.Tolkien thus asserts that he has used the Old English word, orcneas, to represent the Rohirric word for the Orcs. The transition from goblin to orc is complete, but not from Hobgoblin to Uruk. That is, in The Hobbit, Tolkien used the word "hobgoblin" as a name for larger Orcs. But in English folklore, a hobgoblin is a small goblin, not a large one (in fact, they were supposed to be household sprites). Tolkien was, in effect, turning English folklore upside down, asserting that the worst goblins, the real orcs, were the hobgoblins. In a way, Tolkien was correcting a mistake. He transformed his goblins, malicious little sprites, into Orcs, fell creatures sent out from Angband (Hell). But he also elevated his hobgoblins (larger Orcs) by distinguishing them as "goblins of the hills" and "Orcs of the mountains". They were not household sprites like Robin Goodfellow. They were Uruks. Furthermore, the Uruks became nasty, deadly, serious monsters capable of inspiring awe and fear even in their greatest foes. Uruks did not drool like George Macdonald's goblins, did not have pittery-pattery little feet, and they were not even the least bit friendly to men or the friends of men. Uruks are the most evil and malevolent of Orcs, corrupted as far as evil overlords can take them, retaining only the barest essential human qualities of courage, loyalty, friendship, and (in the case of Saruman's Uruk-hai) pride. And Tolkien did make them very man-like, even pointing out their physical similarities to men. He wanted nothing to make the Uruks look like little fairy creatures. Nor did he want anyone to associate the Uruks with phantoms and ghosts, such as might haunt medieval French towns. The Uruks were very real, so real that Gandalf did not (in the published text) have to call them "real Orcs".
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