The J. R. R. Tolkien Companion and Guide: Volume 3: Reader’s Guide PART 2. Christina Scull

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СКАЧАТЬ present essay, which dates probably from 1959, he now considered other possibilities for the origin of Orcs, and ultimately decided that ‘“talking” is not necessarily the sign of the possession of a “rational soul”’, and therefore Orcs were ‘beasts of humanized shape (to mock Men and Elves) deliberately perverted/converted into a more close resemblance to Men’ (p. 410) – though possibly there was an Elvish or Mannish strain also.

      In the untitled text IX, undated but probably from also from the late 1950s, Tolkien reiterated: ‘One point only is certain: Melkor could not “create” living “creatures” of independent wills’ (p. 413). He decided that Orcs had a mixed origin, not only from corruptions of Elves and Men, but also from corrupted minor spirits.

      Text X contains the first two paragraphs of Appendix C of *Quendi and Eldar, ‘Elvish Names for Orcs’, and another essay entitled Orcs. Both probably date from 1959–60. Deliberately bypassing the question of the ultimate origin of Orcs, the extract describes them as bred by Morgoth in ‘mockery of the Children of Ilúvatar, wholly subservient to his will, and nursed in an unappeasable hatred of Elves and Men’. Nevertheless they are ‘living creatures, capable of speech and of some crafts and organization, or at least capable of learning such things from higher creatures or from their Master’ (p. 416). But it was unlikely that the Eldar had met any orcs before they began their march into the West.

      This seems to have led Tolkien to compose on his typewriter a four-page essay on Orcs, which he attached to Quendi and Eldar. Prior to Tolkien’s proposed revision of the cosmology of Arda in the late 1950s, Men awoke only with the rising of the Sun, formed from the last fruit of the tree Laurelin after the destruction of the Two Trees, and therefore could not have been corrupted to form Orcs, who were abundant in Middle-earth before this event. But once the Sun was conceived as having been in existence since the beginning, the awakening of Men could be placed far back in the history of Middle-earth, though not, Tolkien decided, before most of the Elves followed Oromë on the Great March to the West. This, however, also posed a chronological problem, since Melkor had been taken prisoner to Aman before the March began. Orcs, like Men, were short-lived; and ‘it became clear in time that undoubted Men could under the domination of Morgoth or his agents in a few generations be reduced almost to the Orc-level of mind and habits’ (p. 418).

      In the essay Tolkien seems also to be trying to explain why Orcs were treated differently from other servants of Morgoth or Sauron:

      Though of necessity, being fingers of the hand of Morgoth, they must be fought with the utmost severity, they must not be dealt with in their own terms of cruelty and treachery. Captives must not be tormented, not even to discover information for the defence of the homes of Elves and Men. If any Orcs surrendered and asked for mercy, they must be granted it, even at a cost. ([footnote:] Few Orcs ever did so in the Elder Days, and at no time would any Orc treat with any Elf ….] [p. 419]

      The essay continues with a discussion of Orcs in the Second and Third Ages under Sauron, who ‘achieved even greater control over his Orcs than Morgoth had done’ (p. 419). This suggests a solution to the chronological problem: the idea of breeding Orcs came from Morgoth, but the accomplishment was left to Sauron, who was able to continue with the programme in the long years of Morgoth’s captivity in Aman.

      Accompanying one copy of the typescript of text X are two notes written almost a decade later on versos of papers dated 10 November 1969. One discusses the spelling orc versus ork, the other the ability of Morgoth to reduce Orcs to ‘puppets’ but at a great expense of his power, and therefore this was the case for only a small part of their numbers.

      Ósanwe-kenta see Quendi and Eldar

Otley (Yorkshire). From mid-April to mid-May 1916 Tolkien took an army course at the Northern Command and Ripon Training Centre Signalling School, based in Farnley Park, Otley, a market town north-west of *Leeds. Within the park is Farnley Hall, built in 1581 with an eighteenth-century addition.

Otsan. List, detailing the week as defined by the Elves, published as part of ‘Otsan and Kainendan’, pp. 16–22 in ‘Early Qenya Fragments’ in Parma Eldalamberon 14 (2003), edited with commentary and notes by Patrick Wynne and Christopher Gilson.

      The full title of the list is The Otsan or Otsola (oglad) of the Elves. In this the Qenya (later Quenya, see *Languages, Invented) names for a seven-day week, derived from terms in the *Qenyaqetsa, are equated to English names, and each is also associated with names and domains of responsibility of the Valar (or Children of the Valar). Wednesday, the first day of the week, is linked to Manwë and Varda, perhaps ‘to create an association between Manwe, Lord of the Valar, and Woden (Odin), chief of the Germanic gods after whom Wednesday is named … while still according Manwe the honour of having his day come first in the week’ (pp. 19–20).

      Tolkien wrote the list on a loose leaf which he laid into a notebook associated with *The Book of Lost Tales, and referred to it in another Lost Tales notebook from 1916–17.

      See also *Kainendan.

       Outline of Phonology see Quenya: Outline of Phonology

Over Old Hills and Far Away. Poem, published in *The Book of Lost Tales, Part One (1983), pp. 108–10.

      The poet is lured from his bed by the sound of a flute. He finds Tinfang Warble (cf. *Tinfang Warble) ‘dancing there, / Fluting and tossing his old white hair, Till it sparkled like frost in a winter moon’; but the piper slips ‘through the reeds like a mist in the glade’. The poet follows ‘the hoot’ of a ‘twilight flute’ ‘over old hills and far away / Where the harps of the Elvenfolk softly play’ (The Book of Lost Tales, Part One, pp. 109–10).

      The poem exists in five texts, the latest of which was published in The Book of Lost Tales, Part One together with selected earlier readings. According to an apparently contemporaneous note on an early manuscript of the poem, Tolkien composed Over Old Hills and Far Away in January–February 1916; at the time, he was in Brocton army camp, *Staffordshire. A later manuscript, however, is inscribed by Tolkien ‘Brocton Camp, Christ[mas]–Jan[uary] 1915–16’, while another, presumed to be the latest version, is marked ‘Brocton 1916? Oxford 1927’, suggesting revision after Tolkien had returned to Oxford; but the latter inscription is struck through.

Oxford and environs. The city of Oxford, where Tolkien lived and worked for most of his life, lies north-west of London at the meeting place of two rivers, the Cherwell and the Isis (as the upper part of the Thames is known locally). A settlement existed there as early as the eighth century, by a ford used for oxen, hence Oxford, and a town was established by the year 912. Oxford received its city charter in 1155. It became an important crossroads, and trade flourished. The University of Oxford grew up there in the twelfth century.

      The importance of Oxford (the place) in Tolkien’s life has demanded that it be treated in detail, and it has been most convenient to divide this treatment into three parts: one concerned with Tolkien’s homes in Oxford, a second with buildings, businesses, colleges, and other features within central Oxford, and a third with places that Tolkien knew near Oxford but which are outside the city proper. The history and operation of the University of Oxford are discussed in a separate entry, *Oxford, University of.

      TOLKIEN’S OXFORD HOMES

      Tolkien went up to Exeter College in Michaelmas Term 1911. Until the end of Trinity Term 1914 he lived in a building called ‘Swiss Cottage’, which looked out on Turl Street at the Broad Street end; see his sketch Turl Street, Oxford in Artist and Illustrator, fig. 19, and his cover for an ‘Exeter College Smoker’ programme reproduced СКАЧАТЬ