Male and Female Orcs

[Galin]

Good catch Nerwen!

I would also add that The Drúedain belongs to the very late period of Tolkien's writing, and a note to that text reads...

'To the unfriendly who, not knowing them well, declared that Morgoth must have bred the Orcs from such a stock the Eldar answered: 'Doubtless Morgoth, since he can make no living thing, bred Orcs from various kinds of Men, but the Drúedain must have escaped his Shadow; for their laughter...'

Sure one can note that this 'origin' is a statement or belief of internal characters in any event... but anyway... we could possibly be into the early 1970s with this one (basically the idea published in the 1977 Silmarillion comes from internal characters as well, who didn't certainly know the true origin of Orcs, despite that it was the Wise of Eressea who believed that captured Elves were the original stock).


Another note from the 1960s reads...

'The Council seems to have been unaware, since for many years Isengard had been closely guarded, of what went on within its Ring. The use, and possibly special breeding, of Orcs was kept secret, and cannot have begun much before 2990 at earliest. The Orc-troops seem never to have been used beyond the territory of Isengard before the attack on Rohan.' UT, The Palantiri, endnote 7

Hmm.