The Complete Tolkien Companion (75 page)

Ondolindë
‘Rock-of-the-Music-of-Water' (Q.) – The High-elven name given by Turgon of the Noldor to the great and beautiful city he built on the hill of Amon Gwareth in the Hidden Vale of Tumladen; however, this city and refuge was more generally known – to the world outside – under its Grey-elven name
GONDOLIN
.

Ondosto
– A town in the Forostar (north region) of Númenor, possibly a centre of the stone-quarrying industry in that province.

One Ring
– The
RULING RING
of Sauron the Great.

Onodló
– The
ENTWASH
river.

Onodrim
‘Ent-folk' (Sind.) – The collective plural in use among Grey-elves for the race of
ENTS
. The standard plural was
Enyd.

‘O Orofarnë, Lassemista, Carnimírië!'
– A lament for the destroyed rowan-trees of Fangorn Forest, sung to the Hobbits Meriadoc Brandybuck and Peregrin Took by the Ent Bregalad (Quickbeam).
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He was an Ent much attached to rowans, and the three trees named in this lament were especially beloved members of ‘the People of the Rose' murdered by Orcs of Saruman. For this reason Bregalad was the first Ent to decide upon revenge against the Wizard.

Opening Hour
– In the traditions of the Eldar, the Hour before Hours: the first hour of the life of the Silver Tree Telperion, not reckoned into the Count of Time.

Oraeron
‘Sea-day' (Sind.) – The name given by the Dúnedain of Middle-earth to the sixth of the seven days in their week (
see
KINGS' RECKONING
). The original, Quenya name, used in Númenor during the Second Age and by most Westron-speaking peoples of the late Third Age, was
Eärenya;
Hobbits knew it as
Meresdei
(later
Mersday
).

Orald
– The name given among Northern Men to the creature known (to Buckland Hobbits) as Tom Bombadil.

Oranor
‘Sun's day' (Sind.) – The Grey-elves' name for the second day of their six-day week, and the name used by the Dúnedain of Middle-earth for the second day of their seven-day week. This day was known to the High-elves – and the Westron-speaking folk of Middle-earth who used
KINGS' RECKONING
– as
Anarya.
The Hobbits, who used their own idiosyncratic form of Kings' Reckoning, used a translated form of the Elven names:
Sunnendei
(later
Sunday
).

Orbelain
‘Day-of-the-Valar' (Sind.) – One of the two Grey-elven names for the sixth and final day of their week (
enquië
), being equivalent to
Valanya
(Q.), the High-elven name. Its alternative name was
Rodyn
in Sindarin.

This was the chief day of the week, dedicated to the Valar, or Powers. It was later incorporated by the Dúnedain of Númenor into their own calendar-system (
see
KINGS' RECKONING
), and the Dúnedain of Middle-earth – many of whom spoke the Grey-elven tongue – used
Orbelain
to mean the chief and final day of their seven-day week.

Orch
(pl.
yrch
) – The Grey-elves' name for the creatures known to Men as
Goblins, Hobgoblins, Suart-alfar
and many other names, but in records of the First, Second and Third Ages as
ORCS
.

Orcrist
‘Goblin-cleaver' (Sind.) – One of a matching pair of Elven-swords forged in the High-elven city of Gondolin during the First Age, for use in the wars against Morgoth the Enemy. Its mate was
GLAMDRING
. Both blades were fashioned at a time when Elvish smithcraft was at its height, and both were of marvellous workmanship, with many curious properties. The swords were captured when Gondolin was destroyed at the end of the First Age, and after two full Ages they turned up in the lair of a band of Stone-trolls, in eastern Eriador.

The swords were recovered from this unsavoury resting-place by the members of Thorin Oakenshield's famous expedition to Erebor, in 2941 Third Age; and Thorin himself chose to wear Orcrist throughout the remainder of his adventures. He wielded the sword to great effect in the Battle of Five Armies later that same year and after he fell in that battle, his weapon was laid upon his tomb in Erebor, to give warning should enemies approach: for the blades of both Orcrist and Glamdring burned with a fierce blue flame if Orcs or Trolls came near.

Orcs
– Any memories still preserved by Men of a far-distant time, when the world was both brighter and darker, are now almost buried in a morass of folk myth, and are thus easily dismissed by the sceptical as mere ‘superstition'. And many of the denizens of age-old epic tales are similarly dismissed because our memory of them has become confused, and the feelings they once engendered in the breasts of Men have been forgotten or diminished. In this way the Goblins and Hobgoblins of an earlier time are now ‘remembered' as diminutive creatures of malice who tease domestic pets, turn milk sour and – at their most malevolent – abduct human offspring while substituting their own progeny as ‘changelings'.

Nonetheless the real, darker origins of these creatures may still be accurately traced.
Orc
is derived from the Grey-elven word
orch
(pl.
yrch
) and is today recalled somewhat in the Italian
Orco
or the French
Ogre,
both of which terms are classically applied to the ferocious, blood-drinking creatures whose appearance in even the most innocuous of folk-tales brings about a revival of ancient fears. Clearly these are more accurate recollections of the foul and dangerous race of Orcs – no myth to dwellers in Middle-earth during the First, Second and Third Ages – than the mischievous sprites and kobolds of Celtic and Germanic myth.

Orcs were first bred by Melkor (Morgoth), far back in the Elder Days. They appeared in Middle-earth some time after the awakening of the Quendi in Cuiviénen, and were afterwards believed to be themselves descended from the Quendi, for their sires, it was said, had been abducted by Melkor and twisted and corrupted into this new race: evil, filled with his dark will, cannibalistic and cruel. They abhorred the light of the Sun from their Beginning, emerging from their lairs and caves to do battle for their Black Master only at nightfall. They were bred in Darkness, lived in darkness, died in the dark; yet although they were cowardly and unreliable, so long as the will of their Dark Master animated them they were formidable soldiery, and the enmity between them and the Elves was bitter.

But at that far-off time the true Quendi were succoured by the Valar, who came back to Middle-earth in a great host and fought the Battle of the Powers against Morgoth. Their Enemy was captured, and his oldest stronghold, Utumno, was thrown down for ever. And his hosts of Orcs and Trolls (another of his counterfeits) were well-nigh destroyed. Yet some survived, sleeping under stone; and as the Ages of the Master's imprisonment wore away, and his will once again awoke in Middle-earth, they too awoke, and went out into the Night, and did evil; and increased in number, so that by the time Morgoth had once again rebelled against the Valar, and returned in triumph to Middle-earth, there were legions upon legions of dark soldiery awaiting his orders.

Yet these evil hosts were, in themselves, insufficiently adept (or valiant) to prevent the returning Noldor from inflicting defeat after severe defeat upon them. The Orcs were merely Morgoth's infantry in the War of the Great Jewels, his most expendable commodity, easily bred and easily led; and as fighters they were no match for the Elves, or their allies the Edain. Only when in overwhelming strength – or when accompanied by one of their Master's more terrible servants, such as Balrogs or Dragons – were they able to withstand their enemies, or attack them successfully. Nonetheless, they inflicted great loss on the Eldar and the Edain during the War, and after; and they remained the most numerous and often encountered of Morgoth's creatures. In the end sheer numbers told, and the Elf-realms and cities were captured and ground into the dust, by hosts of shrieking Orcs who were undeterred by enormous losses; and with this final defeat the Darkness rolled over most of Middle-earth. But the Valar at last took pity on the innocent, and themselves came with a great host to Mortal Lands, and Morgoth was cast out, while his innumerable servants were destroyed or scattered far abroad.

Yet the evil that was made in the First Age lived on in many of its ancient forms. Morgoth was destroyed, but those of his creatures which escaped the Breaking of Thangorodrim fled far and wide, and their prodigious breeding powers enabled them to spread. Hitherto the Orcs had chiefly been found in the Far North, in Angband, the land of Morgoth, but in the Second Age many tribes and bands made their homes in the Misty Mountains, and the Ered Mithrin, while others made lairs in the passes of other mountain-ranges, or delved tunnels from which to waylay travellers. And they began to diverge into different breeds, varying to some extent in size, colouring and minor details. Yet all were possessed of the same barbarous nature; and they were hideous, with jagged fangs, flared nostrils, tufted ears and slanting eyes which could see like gimlets in the dark – but which still feared the light of Sun as powerfully as in earlier times. They wielded spears and curved scimitars and bore shields of hide, and their weapons were often poisoned. All were filled with fierce, demonic energy and had formidable strength; and they hated Elves and Men with an abiding hatred which reached back into their beginnings.

In the Second Age which followed the Fall of Morgoth the Orcs spread far and wide through Middle-earth – and when the time came for the second arising of Sauron the Great, also a servant of Morgoth during the Elder Days, they were ready and apt to his hand, even as their ancestors had served Sauron's master. With their aid Sauron rapidly made himself Lord of Middle-earth (or of a great part of it), and their numbers swelled once more. Yet the defeats which Sauron suffered at the end of the Second Age were in part brought about by the basic untrustworthiness of his chief soldiers, and so he determined to improve the breed when the time came once more for his arising, in the Third Age which followed his defeat upon Orodruin.

Nevertheless, the first part of the Third Age was dominated by the Dúnedain of Gondor and Arnor, and the western reaches of Middle-earth were made unsafe for the Goblin-kind. At this time most of the Orcs which had survived the Last Alliance dwelled in their old lairs in the northernmost Misty Mountains, the chief stronghold of which was Gundabad, not far from the Grey Mountains. There they hid, and delved new tunnels to bar the passes, while others passed east to southern Mirkwood and entered the service of the ‘Necromancer' operating from his new tower of Dol Guldur.

In 1981 Third Age, after the Dwarves had fled from Moria, the ancient Dwarf-realm was occupied by Orcs of the mountains, and it was the brutal and obscene insult offered by these usurpers to the dispossessed Dwarves which led to the first organised attempt on the part of one of the Free Peoples to exterminate the race of Orcs. The six-year
WAR OF THE DWARVES AND ORCS
led to vast numbers of Goblins being slain by the vengeful Heirs of Thrór, and at the Battle of Azanulbizar the surviving Goblins were practically annihilated. Those that managed to escape fled south.

Yet once more their powers of regeneration enabled the Orcs to repopulate all their old haunts before many years had passed. In 2510 the wife of Elrond, the Lady Celebrían, was captured by a band of Goblins in a high pass of the Misty Mountains. And although she was later rescued by her sons, from that date onwards the routes across the Mountains from Eriador to Wilderland became increasingly dangerous and hazardous because of these creatures. Only the Elves of Rivendell and the Men of the Carrock Ford made any attempt to combat the menace, with mixed success: in 2941 a well-armed party of thirteen Dwarves, one Hobbit and a Wizard was assailed by an Orc-band while attempting the crossing, and only presence of mind saved them from a terrible fate.
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Yet the Third Age closed, like both previous ages, with an overwhelming victory on the part of the Free Peoples over the Dark Powers, and the Orcs shared the downfall of their Master. The numbers who fell in battle – at the Hornburg, on the Pelennor Fields and in the final combat before the Black Gate – were never estimated. Doubtless the survivors fled north once more, to their ancient homes amid the crags of the Misty Mountains, but no records speak of this. It is certain, however, that the race was not extinguished, and soon increased its numbers once more to become the threat to the Free Peoples it had remained since the Great Darkness of its first creation.

Understandably enough, few Orcs have ever been mentioned by name in the records of their foes.
Azog
was the name of the Great Orc who slew King Thrór of the Dwarves, and who was himself dispatched by Dáin Ironfoot, later King Under the Mountain. Azog's son
Bolg
led the Orcs to the Battle of Five Armies (2941 Third Age), but was slain by Beorn the Skin-changer for his trouble. A certain
Golfimbul
led a foolhardy invasion of the Shire in 2747, and was killed by the Hobbit Bandobras Took at the Battle of Greenfields. During the War of the Ring the leader of the Uruk-hai of Isengard was named
Uglúk,
while a chieftain of the Goblins of Mordor was called
Grishnákh.

The name
Uruk-hai
is in the Black Speech of Mordor and means, more or less, ‘Great Orcs'. The breed was thought (by some) to be the result of a blasphemous blending of the races of Orcs and Men on the part of Saruman the Wizard; others claimed the Uruk-hai had been bred by Sauron himself. Certainly the Uruks were larger in size than other Goblins, and were uncomfortably man-like in other ways; but they were nonetheless true Orcs (even as the Ologhai, thought to be giant Orcs, were in actuality exceptionally agile Trolls).