Wherefore Orcs?

[The_Gneech]

Tolkien is full of orcs, of course; the word itself is old or middle English if I remember correctly. So I kinda take it as read that the Professor's work is the primary source of the orc as a fantasy creature, as with the hobbit/halfling.

(In this context, I mean the term "orc" as opposed to the more-commonly used "goblin," and "hobbit" as opposed to references to "wee folk under the hills" or whatever.)

Anyway, I'm curious ... aside from D&D and other gaming-related material (including Elmore's "Sovereign Stone" setting, which is kinda-sorta gaming derived), is there any fantasy literature out there that uses the term "orc?" I've seen plenty of elves, a smattering of dwarves, a few very-deliberate "hobbits with the serial numbers filed off." But I've rarely seen the orc make a literary appearance. Generally, non-human, evil humanoid creatures I've seen in fantasy books are referred to as trolls or goblins, or some world-specific "darkling" or something similar.

So. What's up with the orc? Any thoughts?

-The Gneech

 

[Mark Plemmons]

The only thing I know of might be the Orculli and Norggen, small descendants of Orchi (large and malevolent giants). They're a legend of northern Italy, I think.

===
Mark Plemmons
Kenzer and Company
www.kenzerco.com
===

 

[-Warlord-]

In the Warhammer universe there are plenty of orcs. Don't know any specific Warhammer novel that features them though.

The Warhammer orcs are a great bunch. Powerfull, big...and even unknowlingly psionic. They worship gods, or so they think, but the power for their magic actually comes from the orc groupmind.
Lots of orcs together make a psionic resonance that a shaman can tap into for power...or explode his head if too many orcs are around.

In Warhammer 40K this is even worse. Red orc-cars go faster, because Orcs think they go faster. The Empire has tested this. They painted a orctruck they captured blue....and it slowed down. They painted it red again, and it got faster again.
Big weapons do more damage than small ones (even though the smaller ones are powerweapons) because orcs believe big weapons do more damage than small damage.
Anything with a barrel can shoot, because orcs believe anything with a barrel can shoot. The empire has examined orc-weapons, seen in battle as firing lasers, only to notice the things didn't even have powercells.

 

[Crothian]

If you want an RPG book on orcs, Kindoms of Kalamar has a great book called Fury in the Wastelands: The Orcs of Tellene

 

[I'm A Banana]

Orcs are definately older than D&D and Tolkien.

Think of Pork, then think of boar-men...those are the origins of Orcs. Of course, they've come far from those, but in general a piggy, tusked beast of power and stupidity is at least in flavor similar to a D&D/Tolkien Orc, though their swine influences are less prominent.

 

[Gregor]

I could be wrong, but if my memory serves, there is a mention of a creature called "Orc" (or some other spelling) in Beowulf. That would alone create the link with Tolkien.

Cheers

 

[Desdichado]

Orcs are not older than Tolkien, he created them out of a few old English words, including Beowulf's orcneas which were some kind of demon. Pork or boar men, have nothing to do with them.

They've since taken on a literary life of their own, though -- in no small part thanks to Games Workshop and Warcraft, who both have very similar types of orcs, which are specifically not all that Tolkien-like.

In fact, the lastest D&D orcs now seem to owe more to Warcraft than they do to their own internal history. Thankfully -- 1e orcs were pitifully stupid looking, IMO.

 

[Enkhidu]

Here's a tidbit from http://tft.brainiac.com/archive/0012/msg00005.html

Orc:
Orcneas in beowulf. An Orc-giant derived from the word orcus.
Oxford English Dictionary

"... His term orcneas, a hybrid composed of a Latin word for "infernal
demon" and a Germanic word for the walking dead, epitomizes the dual
perception of the monsters."
Fred C. Robinson Beowulf and the Appositive style 1985 page 83


"eotenas ond ylfe ond orcneas
swylce gigantas" -Old english

"etins and elves and orcs
such giants" -translation
Beowulf lines 112-13

"A different word orc, alluding to a demon or ogre, appears in Old
English glosses of about AD 800 and in the compound word orcneas
("monsters") in the poem Beowulf. As with the Italian orco ("ogre") and the
word ogre itself, it ultimately derives from the Latin Orcus, a god of the
underworld. The Old English creatures were most likely the inspiration for
the orcs that appear in J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings trilogy."
Encyclopedia Britanica

 

[hellbender]

Mary Gentle's fantasy book 'Grunts' is all about orcs. Orcs feature in a number of Warhammer short stories, including 'Wolf Riders'. As a sidenote, technically, the word hobbit is pre-Tolkien, it appears in a British treatise on the fey known as the Denham Tracts. Therefore, Tolkien just lifted them from a list of fairy names and they should still be known as such, not really any different from brownie or bugbear, do a Google search on the Denham Tracts.


hellbender

 

[Desdichado]

Actually, unless you want to call Tolkien a liar, that's entirely coincidental. Hobbit was derived from actual Old English roots, hence the Rohirrim term hol-bytla.