Ogres and Goblins and Trolls, Oh My! - Part 1

So, as I've mentioned before, writing fantasy involves a lot of really fun research into pretty cool topics. And while you might think - hey, I know all about ogres and goblins and such, they are monsters, they do mean things, I get it. Do you really? Do you know enough? Can you know enough? Let's all get sucked down that rabbit hole together. Let's start with ogres (females are ogress, btw) and word origin. It's French (yeah, it looks French with the 're' at the end instead of an 'er'), and derived from the god Orcus, who liked to eat human flesh (Eating human flesh? Geeze, what's that about? Please reference my first blog post in Fantastic Finds - Cannibals.) Ogres like to especially eat babies; I mean, of course they do. The earliest known mention of 'ogres' is in a 12th century Old French poem, of all things. However, older versions of ogres exist in different spelling varieties - one famous example is the Old English poem, Beowulf, which references orcneas. By the way, Tolkien used this root word and was inspired by Beowulf to create his nasty orcs. Side paragraph for Orcs. While Tolkien was inspired by Beowulf and additional ancient ogre mythology, he definitely created his own unique thing in Lord of the Rings. Dungeons & Dragons, Warcraft, and others have copied him since. So if you see 'orc', it's basically a nod to Tolkien. So, orcs are considered to be cannibals as well; they will eat other orcs or, of course, man flesh! Though I must say, I can't recall any baby-eating from the books, so perhaps that is one of the differences between ogres and orcs. Orcs are somewhat man-shaped with bowed legs and long arms. They are filthy and have a variety of skin colors - sallow green to brownish to even occasionally black. They are violent, crude, and generally dumb, which makes them good minions. The only real redeeming feature is they get to ride wargs and other cool creatures into battle. Ok, back to ogres, the real deal ancient first O-word brutes. In the 1600s, ogres are mentioned in French fairy-tales by at least two authors. Soon after, the very first ogress (female ogre!) comes along in Sleeping Beauty, which was first published at the end of the 17th Century. Wait wait, what? There was an ogress in Sleeping Beauty? 'Um, I missed that part...' Yeah, perhaps that's because we all watched the Disney version, and didn't read the Brothers Grimm version. Well, the original Sleeping Beauty had a Part Two where the Prince's mother was an ogress, and she wants to eat Sleeping Beauty and their twin children. So yeah, eating children is a big thing for ogres. To be authentic as a fantasy author, you really should have some children getting eaten by an ogre, or at least in danger of getting eaten. In classic ogre mythology, ogres are often described as giants or are somehow muddled with giants. Let's say, they are close on the fantasy evolutionary tree. Ogres are taller than humans and very strong, with big heads and lots of hair. So, we're learning some important physical differences with orcs. With ogres you should picture hideous giants; with orcs you should picture sort of disproportionate humans. There was a famous giant in Jack and the Bean Stalk, a fairy-tale that has had many versions over the years and began over 5,000 years ago with The Boy Who Stole Ogre's Treasure. Oh that is not a typo, folks. Five thousand years ago! That's wicked old. Anyways, you may recall that the giant in the story wanted to eat Jack. A very ogre thing to do. The giants in The Pilgrim's Progress (which I haven't read, but I've heard of) has a ton of nasty giants, and a quick skim shows me that some of them ate people. Anyways, as a writer, it might be a good idea to give giants some ogreish tastes and give ogres some giantish proportions. It would be in keeping with a long history of ogre mythology. Very legit. I know you all have been thinking the same thing throughout this post. You are wondering - where is my favorite ogre? Why is she not mentioning him? Shrek!! Shrek first appeared in a 1990 picture book by cartoonist William Steig. This book was the inspiration for the 2001 film that made Shrek world famous! Shrek is rather large, a sallow green color; however, he does not eat babies. But that's ok! He's a good ogre! Folks, this is fantasy. We can bend all sorts of rules. Also, while I am not familiar with the fairy-tale Puss in Boots, I've read that there is a shapeshifting ogre that in some versions of the story is a shapeshifting giant. We should not be surprised that an ogre and a giant share a role over the years. We are learning! A giant could totally be an understudy for an ogre, and vice versa. The story originated as a 16th century Italian story, but was later redone in French and then everywhere else. But gotta say, the best part of all of this is the fascinating skew from the norm - shapeshifting ogre! How cool is that? I think all fantasy authors should consider a shapeshifting ogre. I looked into it, and shapeshifting ogre was done again in an early 2000s book series which became a 2008 movie - The Spiderwick Chronicles. I haven't read it and can't opine on it, but I gotta give a big thumbs up for working in the shapeshifting ogre. Well, if you get anything out of this post at all, I hope you can remember that ogres are much bigger than humans (and orcs) and they eat babies. From there, just use your imagination and see where it takes you. Pull a Tolkien or Puss in Boots and spin your own thing! Own it! Anybody out there become a fan of ogres after reading this? Anyone out there have a favorite ogre story that didn't get mentioned? Anybody interested in seeing the sequel to Sleeping Beauty? Yikes!