The Complete Tolkien Companion

by J. E. A. Tyler

  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 swell
ed 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.5

  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).

  Yet the Uruk-hai were able to ignore the presence of the Sun, unlike all other Orcs, and they fought with swords which had straight blades, unlike the usual curved and jagged scimitars; and they displayed more tenacity and courage than ordinary Orcs, and were as a consequence worthier foes. Most of them perished at the Battle of the Hornburg (March, 3019 Third Age).

  Orë – The Quenya or High-elven word for ‘heart’ or ‘inner mind’; also the title of Tengwa number 21, which represented the sound of (untrilled) r in those languages which required it.

  Orfalch Echor – The name given by Elves of Gondolin to the narrow and secret pass through the Encircling Mountains, the hidden gate of their land. It was guarded at one end by a tunnel, and by the hidden door to the world outside, and throughout its length by seven more guarded gates, each of which had to be passed before the traveller at length passed out of the Orfalch and beheld, far off across the valley, the city of Turgon.

  Orgaladh ‘Tree-day’ – The Sindarin form of Aldëa (Q.), the name given by the Númenoreans to the fourth day of the week. The name Orgaladh was used only by the Dúnedain of Middle-earth, direct descendants of the Númenoreans. Most other folk of Middle-earth who used the Dúnedain calendar-systems retained the original (Quenya) names for the months and days; although the Hobbits used translated forms of these names. Thus their name for Aldëa or Orgaladh was Trewesdei (later Trewsday).

  Orgaladhad ‘Trees’-day’ (Sind.) – The Grey-elves’ name for the fourth day of the Eldarin six-day week. Its High-elven equivalent was Aldúya, the name originally given in honour of the Two Trees of Valinor. In the later, Mannish system of Kings’ Reckoning the Númenoreans created a seven-day week and the name Aldúya was replaced by Aldëa, ‘Tree-day’ – in reference to the (single) White Tree of the High-elves, of which a descendant, Nimloth, grew in the King’s Court in Númenor. Orgaladh (‘Tree-day’) was therefore the Sindarin word for the fourth day of the Mannish week, while the plural form Orgaladhad referred only to the same day in the Elvish week. See also previous entry.

  Orgilion ‘Stars’-day’ (Sind.) – The name given by the Grey-elves and the Dúnedain of Middle-earth to the first day of their respective weeks – the six-day week of the Eldar and the seven-day week of the Kings’, Stewards’ and New Reckonings used by the Dúnedain and many other folk of western Middle-earth. Its High-elven form was Elenya; the Hobbits’ name was Sterrendei (later Sterday).

  Ori – A Dwarf of Erebor, one of the twelve companions of Thorin Oakenshield on the famous expedition of 2941 Third Age. After the successful conclusion of that mission, Ori lived for many years in peace and honour in the Lonely Mountain until, in the year 2989 he joined Balin’s fated expedition to Moria. It was Ori’s hand which recorded (in the famous Book of Mazarbul) the last days of the doomed colony some five years later. He fell defending the Chamber of Mazarbul and Balin’s tomb, one of the last to perish.

  Orithil ‘Moon’s-day’ (Sind.) – The name used by the Grey-elves and the Dúnedain of Middle-earth for the third day of both the (six-day) Eldarin and the (seven-day) Númenorean week. The High-elven equivalent – also used by most of the Westron-speaking peoples of Middle-earth – was Isilya. The Hobbits’ (translated) name for it was Monendei (later Monday).

  Orkish Tongues – See BLACK SPEECH.

  Orleg – A member of Túrin’s outlaw band, slain by Orcs.

  Ormal – See ILLUIN.

  Ormenel ‘Heavens’-day’ (Sind.) – The fourth day of the week in both the Elvish and Mannish usage, equivalent to Menelya (Q.). Ormenel was used by the Grey-elves and by the Dúnedain of Middle-earth, while the Quenya name was used by the High-elves, the Númenoreans of the Second Age, and most of the Westron-speaking peoples of the Third Age. The Hobbits used a translated form, Hevenesdei (later Hevensday or Hensday).

  Ornendil – The first son of Eldacar II, twenty-first King of Gondor. Civil war broke out in Gondor on Eldacar’s ascension to the throne in 1432 Third Age, and eventually the rebels, led by Castamir the Usurper, gained the upper hand. For several years they besieged Osgiliath, the capital, and in 1437 finally captured it. Although Eldacar managed to escape, his son was taken by the rebels and, at the orders of Castamir, executed. His father later avenged him.


  See also KIN-STRIFE.

  Orocarni – See MOUNTAINS OF THE EAST.

  Orod-na-Thôn ‘Pine-mountain’ (Sind.) – See DORTHONION.

  Orodreth – The second of the four sons of Finarfin; together with his brothers and sister (Galadriel) he came back to Middle-earth in exile during the First Age, and fought in the earlier battles against Morgoth. For the first four centuries of his exile, Orodreth was Finrod’s warden, in the tower of Tol Sirion which the sons of Finarfin – under Finrod’s leadership – had built; but at the Dagor Bragollach, and in the months afterwards, this tower came under siege, and it was captured by Sauron, and then Orodreth fled from the North and joined Finrod in Nargothrond (as did some other Elven-princes of those days). And when Finrod departed into the North with Beren, never to return, Orodreth succeeded him as King of Nargothrond.

  Orodreth had one daughter, Finduilas, born in Nargothrond. She, formerly the betrothed of Gwindor son of Guilin, fell in love with Túrin of the Edain, when that warrior came to her father’s city in the years following the Nirnaeth Arnoediad (at which Orodreth had not been present). But it was by the coming of Túrin that Nargothrond’s fate was sealed. Bold and stirring though his leadership was (Orodreth virtually abdicated the generalship of the armies of Nargothrond to Túrin during this time), his counsels proved not all wise, and in the end he led the Elven-hosts to destruction, upon Tumhalad. There Orodreth was slain in battle. Finduilas, taken prisoner by the Orcs, was slain shortly afterwards. Túrin alone survived.

  Also the name taken by one of the Dúnedain: the sixteenth (from 2655–85 Third Age) Ruling Steward of Gondor.

  Orodruin ‘Burning Mountain’ (Sind.) – The ancient name for the greatest active volcano in western Middle-earth, which thrust its smoking cone almost vertically up from the very centre of the plain of Gorgoroth in Mordor. The ‘Fire-mountain’ was the heart of the ancient realm of Sauron the Great, and the forge of his might; there he made the Ruling Ring during the middle of the Second Age.