Where Did J.R.R. Tolkien Actually Get His Orcs From?

Tolkien is back on our screens again with Amazon’s Rings of Power and it seems that the orcs would return as the elves and humans’ main antagonists. He brought the orcs into modern usage mostly through The Lord of the Rings, and his influence has spread all across fantasy fiction from Dungeons and Dragons to Warcraft. There have been debates about their origins—within the story—, like how orcs are actually the corrupted race of elves, but let’s take a look instead at Tolkien’s inspiration for them.

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SOURCES:
Shippey, Tom (2005) [1982]. The Road to Middle-Earth (Third ed.).
Carpenter, Humphrey, ed. (1981), The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien
Did J.R.R. Tolkien Invent Orcs – Middle-earth & J.R.R. Tolkien Blog (xenite.org)
Tolkien, J. R. R. (1994), Christopher Tolkien (ed.), The War of the Jewels

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