Fenris, the only quote I can find on Beorn outside The Hobbit is this from letter #144.
So just a man with some exceptional abilities.
Isn’t his son briefly mentioned in FoTR?
Yes–the “Beornings” get mentioned in FOTR.
Here’s another question in the “nature spirit” chain of thought–What are the wolves that attack the Hobbits and Strider at Weathertop? Are they supposed to be embodiments of the Nazgul? The wolf’s body disappears.
And while we’re on it, I’m in the nature spirit camp for Tom Bombadil–note the similarity to Adam, who was made out of the dirt of the earth by the breath of God, eldest man, with dominion over the earth. Assume Adam never fell, and you can associate him with the earth itself, native organically to earth, so to speak. Tom seems to me to be too wrapped up in Middle Earth to have room to exist outside of it.
Well yes, on p. 241 (p. 301 of my copy) according to quote I provided. But it provides no information on Beorn. It just mentions Beorn’s son Grimbeorn and the Beornings are keeping the passes open. As such I didn’t consider it a viable quote for information on Beorn himself.
Humble Servant, the wolf attack takes place in Hollin, not on Weathertop. As far as what they are I have never heard a good theory. So what are they: Magically enhanced Wargs? Illusions? Something else? Sauron is called the necromancer. While they are unlikely to be undead in the D&D sense, Sauron could have summoned spirits of evil dead creatures. They are probably not Nazgul in an alternative form as we have no evidence that they can take alternative forms.
As you might guess Tolkien left quite a bit undefined. Here are my top unanswered questions on the inhabitants of ME:
Who is Tom? - I have an opinion but I would love for Chris Tolkien to find a long lost notebook titled, On the Nature of Tom and Goldberry.
What are the intelligent beings that are not children of Illuvitar? - We are told that only those given ‘souls’ by Illuvitar have a native intelligence. Of these we know of Men, Elves, Dwarves and Ents. All others supposedly come from these stocks; Hobbits from Men; Orcs/Goblins from Men and/or Elves; Trolls from Ents. So where do the following come from: Turin’s sword, thinking animals (Beorn’s and the fox in FotR), Dragons, Eagles of Manwe, Giants, Caradhras, Wargs, Ungoliant, Shelob, Giant Spiders, The Watcher in the Water etc. Obviously some of these could be ‘nature spirits’ or maia gone native. But according to Tolkien the others should not be intelligent.
How old is the Mouth of Sauron? - He joined when the tower first arose again. Is that a metaphor for Sauron’s return to power after the fall of Numenor. Or is it literal for the rebuilding of the tower of Baradur at the end of the Third age.
There are others of course, but these are ones that bother me the most. Very few stories have the kind of depth to discuss such questions. But Tolkien thought about these things, and made sure he came up with answers for the questions he thought of. I just wish he had made some more definitive answers on some of the issues he didn’t think about.
I just want to point out that the Subject of this Thread (“Quick LoTR question”) is an oxymoron.
Alas, with a little bit of Tolkien’s foresight I would’ve known that.
Cite? Or is this just speculation?
I thought it was pretty firmly established, as well, that Orcs were made by Morgoth from Elves, with no contribution from Men. Unless you count the “Half-orcs” of Isengard (and Bree and the Shire).
It says “Trolls from Ents,” which I believe is true. Orcs and Trolls aren’t the same thing. You might be thinking of Goblins, which is the word Tolkein used in The Hobbit instead of “Orc.”
Sorry, Cisco, I guess I wasn’t clear. I was responding to two different ideas from Bartman’s post.
One was that Trolls were made (by Morgoth) from Ents. I have never heard this before, and am fairly confident it isn’t in the Hobbitt, LOTR or Silmarillion. Bartman seems to have access to a lot of other Tolkein sources, though, so I was wondering if he had a cite. The closest to this I have heard was that Trolls were made in mockery of Ents, or as counterfeits of Ents. To me, its a big leap to say that that means they were made from Ents. One could conjecture they were, however.
The other idea was that Orcs (goblins) were made from Elves AND men. I thought it was pretty generally understood that Orcs (goblins) were made from “corrupted” Elves by Morgoth early in the First Age. Originally, there was no element of Man in them until late in the Third Age when Saruman (not Morgoth or Sauron) was apparently able to somehow blend Orcs (goblins) and Men to make his Half-orcs, which included some of his agents in Bree and the Shire.
I remember reading in the Silmarillion that the legends said their was speculation or rumor to that effect, but it didn’t seem to definitively state that this was the case. But as you pointed out, there are other resources that may state many issues more directly, including this one.
I’m curious whether there is any indication that Orcs exhibit signs of their origins. Do they share any attributes or behavior with Elves? Are they mortal in the same sense that Men are?
Well I am taking a leap here. The first relevant reference is from The Two Towers. This is Treebeard speaking:
From this we get a comparison in strength and the comment that Trolls are to Ents what Orcs are to Elves.
This next quote is from the Silmarilian
From this we see that one likely origin of the Orcs were elves. Of course this is written as a guess ‘by the wise’ so full credence can’t be given to it.
This next quote comes from Morgoth’s Ring (HoME X)
This of course is an early draft and Tolkien changed his mind on certain aspects. In the later drafts of The Silmarillion, Men were not yet alive when Orcs first appeared. So while they might have been added into the Orc stock at a later point, they weren’t in the original orcs. So from these we have that Trolls are to Ents what Orcs are to Elves, and that orcs derive from elves. It is a leap but I believe a logical one that thus Trolls are corrupted forms of Ents.
So to answer your first question Laughing Lagomorph, yes it is speculation, but based on quotes and how Tolkien’s world works. As to the second, in the final drafts of The Silmarillion, men were not part of the ‘stock’ of Orcs but they had been in earlier drafts. And the idea was never explicitly rejected. It is fair to speculate that after the arrival of men the species was mixed.
Now having said all that, I also ran across this while looking up my references. This is also from Morgoth’s Ring (HoME X)
But again all the ‘evil’ beings in the story seem to be corruptions of previously existing types. Tolkien consistently maintains that no intelligent being is created without direct intervention from Eru. So my question still remains where did all these other types come from? I’m sure Tolkien knew, he wasn’t they type not to have sweated the question. But if he detailed the background I haven’t found it.
The best evidence I have seen that the orcs were immortal is in TTT. When Shagrat and Gorbag discuss the great siege. Now the only great siege I can think of is in the war with the Last Alliance. This is weak evidence at best, but I have never heard a better quote from anyone. So the concept that they are immortal is weak, but a favorite among some fans.
Well I really didn’t mean to hijack the OP any further, but it looks like I have done so.
Gee, Bartman. If you didn’t have any evidence, you could just say so! 
Just kidding. Thanks for a very complete answer.
I have another question to add to yours. Does this mean there are female Orcs? Trollwives?
Huh? Didn’t Eomer and his men kill a whole troop of Orcs and burn their bodies? And didn’t Shagrat even kill Gorbag, or vice versa? Lots of Orcs were killed in the LotR IIRC. Or do you mean immortal in the sense that they can never die natural deaths? Now that I think about that way I guess the whole immortality thing makes alot more sense. So if that is indeed the case, how hard would it be to kill an Elf?
In The Hobbit, JRRT refers to all the Orcish creatures as Gobins, but in TLOTR all the orcish creatures in the book are refered to as Orcs - but often he talks about goblins as well, as if Orcs as a subset of goblins.
Are there any other examples of goblins other than Orcs?
(I seem to remeber some in Mordor, but I read The Return of the King almost a year ago, I’m currentl rereading the Two towers, so I’ll get to the RoTH fairly soon.)
Bartman:
I don’t have RotK with me but couldn’t they be referring to the long siege of Gondor, maintained from ummm…Osgiliath, or was it Minas Morgul.
Were they discussing the great siege as if they had seen it personally?
If I may be so bold as to put words in Bartman’s mouth, I think that is exactly what he means. Orcs, like Elves, don’t die of old age, but can be killed in battle. I think it isn’t all that hard to kill an Elf, if you shoot give him a fatal wound with an arrow or a sword. I don’t think any Elven deaths are specifically described in LOTR (except in the distant past, like Gil-Galad), but I think some Elves die in the Hobbitt, in the Battle of Five Armies.
I always thought Tolkien took the cheap way out with the orcs. “Yeah, the whole race is evil. All of them. Absolutely no chance of moral ambiguity whatsoever. Eeeeeeeeeeeeevil.”
I’d like to see a fanfic or ‘inspired by’ story* set ~1000 years after LotR about orcs in the modern society, integrated with the other sentient species and dealing with racism, etc.
On that front, it seems to me the name issue breaks down this way:
Uruk is their name for themselves.
Orc is their public name.
Goblin is sort of a racial slur; it’s a catch-all word for ‘pointy-eared bastards we don’t like.’
–John
*Like the stories in the book “After the King.” All I’ve read from that is Troll Bridge, by Terry Pratchett, though, so I can’t recommend it one way or another.
Yue Han Interesting, I’m sure I’ve seen both goblin and Orc used very close together and it sounded like Orc was a specific name and goblin a generic name, I’ll try to find a quote later. Also ‘goblin’ is never capitalised which is odd, I’d assume any racial group or even slur would be . . .
Regarding the Evil of Orcs, we do not meet many orcs specifically, there are the two who lead the capture of the Hobbits mentioned above, and those in the tower guarding Mordor. What would you consider to be a good Orc? Most of them seem to obay command given to them, which would seem to be a requirement of a good foot solider. If you consider the upbringing of Orcs An Orcs morality differs greatly from ours. But perhaps not as much as you might think.
During the chase of the Orcs (When they are searching for Merry and Pippin) Aragon uses the excuse ‘we are hunting Orcs’ If he believed this to a feasible excuse, then it’s likely this is an actual pastime observed by some men. How is this different from the Orcs hunting the hobbits?
Although they are clearly portrait as the bad guys (And in fantasy Good & Evil are often very clear cut) if you were an Orc you might not think of yourself as evil after all you have been taught how to behave, possibly through example and have more than likely never been exposed to a western morality.
When we consider evil we have something to compare it too, but when Evil is all you have ever known, could it not be considered normal even Good behaviour?
[sub]Sorry, I appear to have rambled a litle there[/sub]
But racism is cool in fantasy. There’s nothing I love more while playing a MUD than to shout something along the lines of “I’LL HAVE YOUR NECK FOR THAT YOU UPPITY ELF!!!” And of course, we’ve all enjoyed a good old-fashioned game of Gnomeball[sup]TM[/sup] a time or two 
Laughing Lagomorph, logic suggests that there are female Orcs and Trolls. There isn’t a direct reference to them anywhere though. At least I haven’t found any.
Cisco, I meant immortality in a Nordic sense. The Norse gods are ‘immortal,’ meaning they don’t age or die from natural causes. LL got it exactly right. Sometimes I write a little too tersely, and occasionally it gets me into trouble. Sorry for any confusion.
atarian, the Orcs could have been referring to any number of ‘Great Sieges’ of course. Osgiliath is a candidate as are a number of other actions which may or may not have been referred to elsewhere. They could be referring to a siege in deep South or far East for all we know. I said the evidence is weak. Here is the full relevant passage:
So when are the old times when ‘loot was nice and handy with no big bosses?’ Sounds like they have been around for a while. Add in the fact that they seem to remember the Great Siege (note the capitalization), and that it took place in the bad old times. This indicates that the Great Siege was either that of Agband in the First Age or the Last Alliance. The other points of argument are that Bolg, as Azog’s son, was leading the Battle of the Five Armies well over a century after Azog was killed in Moria, and that the goblins recognized ‘biter’ and ‘beater’ in the Hobbit on sight (as if they had seen them before). Now all of these ‘facts’ except for the age of Bolg are debatable. And there are classes of Men in Tolkien’s works which have lifespans in excess of a century. That is why I called the argument weak in my post. So Orcs may have a theoretically unlimited lifespan. However given that Orcs kill Orcs in every scene that Orcs have speaking roles, even if they are ‘immortal’ very few probably survive more then a few decades.
Gartog, Orcs were originally the name of the species/race. However when Tolkien wrote the Hobbit, it was not intended to take place in Middle Earth; it was simply a children’s story. However as he thought at the time that nothing from ME was ever going to be published, he threw in some references to the back story. As such the Goblins in The Hobbit were just standard fairy tale goblins. Only later when the two worlds became one did Goblin=Orc. At this point Tolkien had to find a way to justify the use of the word goblin. So goblin became just a colloquialism used by Hobbits and Dwarves. Everyone in LotR refers to them by their correct name Orcs. I think Yue Han is more or less right when he refers to goblin as a racial slur.
Gartog, Yue Han, as far as evil/Orcs equaling non-redeemable, Tolkien also had problems with the idea. Tolkien was a devout Catholic and the idea that repentance/grace was not available to any intelligent being (even in a story) greatly disturbed him. He tried to rationalize a way out of it late in life but never came up with an answer that satisfied him. The most likely answer was that Orcs were free to choose ‘good’ so to speak, but were socially conditioned not to. Any that broke with tradition were probably killed in the near constant intercine fighting. Add to the mix a regular supervision of supernatural overlords (Melkor, Sauron, Balrogs, Nazgul, etc) and the odds were that every Orc you met would be ‘Eeeeevil.’ The idea that the race was able to over time reform and become productive members of the larger society would have appealed to Tolkien, but I don’t believe he ever stated that as fact.
Well I have certainly rambled on long enough for one post. As shelbo pointed out, for some of us there is no such thing a quick LotR question.