BEORN THE SHAPE SHIFTER

Bluebottle wrote:

bungobaggins wrote:

The Hobbit: Queer Lodgings wrote:I cannot say, though I fancy the last is the true tale. He is not the sort of person to ask questions of.

I rather like Beorn in the books. Not sure what to think of him in the movies..

I'm pretty sure

Pettytyrant101 wrote:Who is Jason- Elthir

Some sort of second rate imposter I imagine

No no he is a woodland creature, lives in a lego house and eats buckie flowers and dresses in dresses.
Thankyou for all that information. I do  remember Beorn's son but really I need to find the time and reread it all, I don't want to teach Hasia a pack of lies.

leelee wrote:Is it the fact that Beorn is a shape shifter or Skin Chnger that makes him a threat to the orccs or is the fact of his becoming a bear, it seems he is a grizzly, the reason. Surely an Orc, especially the Uruk kai, or where they not created yet, would not be afraid of such a creature since they ride hideous wargs?  
In the book, and I do not remember, were the skin changers becoming few at that period of time?

The rest of your question was answered already, but I wanted to address this part. As far as terminology goes: there's a note in the beginning of most editions of The Hobbit that straight up says "goblin" is the modern English translation of "orc", so the two words mean exactly the same thing.  Uruk (or Uruk-hai), however, refers to a specific "breed" of orcs that first appeared in Mordor in c. 2500 of the Third Age.  It is unknown how many were in the Misty Mountains, but it's not unreasonable to suppose that Azog and Bolg may have been Uruks since Azog was described as being unusually large, and Uruks were distinguished by their great strength and size.

Uruks should not be confused with the results of Saruman's "experiments", the "half-orcs and goblin men" who crop up repeatedly -- some of them more orcish but with unusual traits like being comfortable with sunlight, and some of them apparently human but who seemed somewhat orcish in appearance to the characters.  The main source of confusion here (aside from the movies), is that Saruman's forces keep calling themselves "the Uruk-hai" during the period where Merry and Pippin are captive, and this is one of the groups that are speculated to be half-orcs.  However, given orcish prejudice against humans (for example, eating other orcs is taboo, but eating humans is encouraged), it is unlikely that Saruman's soldiers would have wanted to advertise their true nature, if they were even fully aware of it.

I dont have the book at hand and I may be misremembering but do Sarumans lot not distinguish themselves by the term 'the fighting Uruk-Hai' and explain that by that they mean they can fight all day if they want to.
I may be misremembering and confusing the book with the BBC radio play but I recall the line "We are the fighting Uruk-Hai. We do not stop the fight for moon or sun." (Somewhere about Aragorns 'parley' with them on the walls of Helms Deep when he is warning them of the dawn.

They do distinguish themselves by claiming the title "the fighting Uruk-hai", yes.  But the term "Uruk" is used elsewhere (mainly in the Appendices) to refer to a specific type of extra-strong orc (no human blood known) that first appeared in Mordor long before Saruman got involved.

I return to my earlier point about orcs being unlikely to brag of having human blood as (IMO) the most likely explanation for the apparent inconsistency. Instead they choose to emphasize their connection with super-strong orc warriors of past and present. What significance the -hai suffix (which means "folk"; see also [i]Olog-hai[/i[) has, I'm not sure.

Just to clarify Eldo does Uruk and Uruk-Hai have the same meaning?
I seem to only recall the Mordor variant as being called Uruks and Black Uruks- bigger stronger orcs.
Whereas the Uruk-Hai seem to be bigger stronger orcs crossed with humans to add resistance to sunlight.

In which case whether Sarumans lot know it or not the cross breeding element would be implied in their title.

I was just working on an edit to my previous post that touches on this.

As far as I can recall, only Saruman's Uruks use the form "Uruk-hai". This has led some people to speculate that the -hai suffix means "men", or in some other way turns the word into "half-Uruk". However, this doesn't really mesh with the forms of Olog-hai to refer to trolls (LOTR Appendix F) or Oghor-hai, the orcs' term for the Druedain (see the essay on them in Unfinished Tales). So the more common interpretation is that -hai means "folk". According to the Tolkien Gateway wiki, this is supported by some etymological writings of JRRT that made it into Parma Eldalamberon 17, but I don't have any back copies of PE so I can't confirm that.

Folk makes some sense in this context, in that Saruman would not want his orcs to know about their human heritage as you point out- calling them the more generic 'folk', especially if it already has use in a context that does not imply human mixes might seem like a good (and devious) compromise to Saruman.

Did some more poking around and I can confirm the Parma Eldalamberon citation.  Uruk-hai means "orc-folk" in the debased form of Black Speech spoken by orcs in the Third Age.  This statement was made as an aside in a letter Tolkien wrote (not included in the Letters) in 1964.  He included a carbon copy of this letter in the same file as "Words, passages, and phrases in The Lord of the Rings", which is how it ended up getting published in PE decades later.

It does seem like an effective (and as you say, devious) way for Saruman to distinguish his forces while playing coy about their true nature.  This interpretation only makes me even more curious about the mystery of the Olog-hai, though, since IIRC those "troll-folk" were from Mordor.

Olg-Hai were trolls that could be n sunlight too weren't they?
If so I would stick my neck out and say that the word' folk' is an association with natural species which could be in light- humans, dwarves, elves, hobbits,ents rather than unnatural created creatures of Morgoth that could not.

Calling them folk therefore implied they could act like 'natural folk' with regard to daylight.

But the means by which this was achieved may have been different- Sauron through some sort of twisted sorcery working on Morgoths original sorcery (and a horrible thought- maybe thats where the ent wives went, into experimentation for troll breeding!). And Saruman more typically of him, through 'mechanical' device means.

Eldorion wrote: The rest of your question was answered already, but I wanted to address this part. As far as terminology goes: there's a note in the beginning of most editions of The Hobbit that straight up says "goblin" is the modern English translation of "orc", so the two words mean exactly the same thing.

This makes me happy.

Uruk (or Uruk-hai), however, refers to a specific "breed" of orcs that first appeared in Mordor in c. 2500 of the Third Age. ...

Happier still. So just to add, I think uruk meant 'goblin' [to use English] at one point [internally], but in use it came to refer to the larger, stronger, more well trained orc, an uruk as distinct from a snaga.

Uruks should not be confused with the results of Saruman's "experiments", the "half-orcs and goblin men" who crop up repeatedly...

Yes there's a debate about this, but I fall on the side of Uruks being orc-folk [great soldier orc-folk], and the Half-orcs being the result of Saruman's messing around with breeding Orcs and Men. At the moment I think of -hai as a plural marker and little more [not that you said otherwise]. They should hardly say uruks anyway, unless they know about English somehow.

There is an instance of rebel 'Uruk-hai' being spoken in Mordor [I think it's in the conversation overheard by Sam and Frodo after escaping the tower], but those [none of those folk who are me in any case] who argue that Uruk-hai properly refers only to Saruman's Uruks have argued that this is the meaning... even here.

If Hai is to denote a plural then surely you should get snaga-hai for lots of lesser orcs, but this doesn't occur.

And Uruk- Hai and Olog-Hai seem to be versions of their species which are different from others of their kind not designated with Hai- most notably in their tolerance for sunlight.

We have Oghor-hai too (Woses), and it looks like I wrote this in my very first thread at Forumshire...

A younger, less grey Elthir once said: I don't know the internal origin of Black Speech -hai, but since it means 'folk' I also note Adûnaic kadar-lâi 'city folk' and Avarin Kinn-lai, where the second element might be related to Quenya lie 'people'.

There could be some borrowing (with distortion) here -- I'm no linguist so I may be off track, but I recall this description as well (from War of the Jewels): 'The word uruk that occurs in the Black Speech, devised (it is said) by Sauron to serve as a lingua franca for his subjects, was probably borrowed by him from the Elvish tongues of earlier times.'

Ahh, I was but a child back then! I was probably befoaled at times!

But I still don't know the internal origin    although wondering if it's a borrowing of sorts.

The Olog-hai are described as a troll race appearing at the end of the Third Age of course. They are certainly sun tolerant due to the will of Sauron, but on the other hand -hai can still work as a way to refer to this kind of Torog in the plural too (not that anyone said it couldn't work, or anyone named Jason either).

Thus wile I think *snaga-hai could occur, Ja... I mean Petty is right in that it doesn't; but then again I'm not sure why, for example, Tolkien always employs Uruks in Unfinished Tales instead of Uruk-hai where Saruman's lads are concerned... I think that's the case anyway, except where Christopher Tolkien explains the anglicization in the Uruks entry.

I wonder how man instances of even Uruk-hai there are when it's not the orcs referring to themselves in speech?

Not that that will explain anything. My guess is lesser than the number of the steps of Orthanc according to Gandalf the Grey.

Pettytyrant101 wrote:Olg-Hai were trolls that could be n sunlight too weren't they?
If so I would stick my neck out and say that the word' folk' is an association with natural species which could be in light- humans, dwarves, elves, hobbits,ents rather than unnatural created creatures of Morgoth that could not.

Calling them folk therefore implied they could act like 'natural folk' with regard to daylight.

But the means by which this was achieved may have been different- Sauron through some sort of twisted sorcery working on Morgoths original sorcery (and a horrible thought- maybe thats where the ent wives went, into experimentation for troll breeding!). And Saruman more typically of him, through 'mechanical' device means.

Oh poor Ent wives, this cannot be so I am sure of that, at least I want to be sure. I am convinced that Ents every where would hear them call out and come to their rescue.

Thank you. But I guess the movie has got to be removed from my mind from the book, I seem to have fused stuff. It is very trying having seen the movies first.

Back to Beorn (well sort of)... last night I finally saw the start of film two. I watched until the company left 'Beorn's' house... so I haven't seen the middle of the film yet (I've already seen the 'end' from the arrival in Laketown to the end of film two).

Positives so far, for this section

Jackson did not make the bees the size of Deerhounds -- so a positive only in a sense.

That is all.

Although I have to say that I don't mind 'Bilbo's' little nose twitch, which again appeared as he was gazing at some computer generated images in the distance. I'm hoping it will not be over-used however, as going to the well too much might arguably spoil it. Thus, considering the director involved, I expect it at least seven more times.

I think Freeman used it when looking through a glass window after his chat with 'Gandalf' about adventures.

Negatives so far

Many. The usual stuff.

I'll add that Jackson's carrot crunch scene was the 'perfect' scene from a director who so often reminds me, in various ways, that I'm watching a film instead of letting me remain immersed in a story.

Okay it's not really about 'Beorn' then.

So much sexual imagery in these movies. Carrot munching, flaming vaginas, keyholes and rock hard keys.

They don't call Smaug the Great Worm for nothing.

What the hell has happened to this Forum eh ?? Sunk to the lowest levels of depravity !
{{{ where's David when you need him ? }}}
{{{ we got the meat...need the 2 veg ! }}}

Sicko's !

Speaking of Beorn, I tried out the recipe for "Beorn's Honey Nut Cake" from this little book last night:

Tolkien Treasury

It wasn't half bad actually. It's more of a spongey sort of cake, with cottage cheese, honey, wheat germ, eggs, some lemon, a bit of butter, nuts on top, etc.

The ingredients seem appropriate (honey!), but I don't recall Beorn keeping any chickens...
Or lemon trees for that matter. I don't think lemons would grow that far north in Middle Earth?

We have to buy the thing?  I hope it wouldn't push your moral boundaries of copyright infringement to type out the recipe.  Is it good enough to be worth the effort?

Could we see a picture?

I'm more of a pie man, myself. I love making pies for Thanksgiving. I've never made a cake, but this one sounds interesting.

A picture would be cool!