Ogre

Puss in Boots before the ogre. One of the platters on the table serves human babies (illustrated by Gustave Doré).

An ogre (feminine: "ogress") is a legendary monster usually depicted as a large, hideous, man-like being that eats ordinary human beings, especially infants and children. Ogres frequently feature in mythology, folklore, and fiction throughout the world. They appear in many classic works of literature, and are most often associated in fairy tales and legend with a taste for infants.

In mythology, ogres are often depicted as inhumanly large and tall and having a disproportionately large head, abundant hair, unusually colored skin, a voracious appetite, and a strong body. Ogres are closely linked with giants and with human cannibals in mythology. In both folklore and fiction, giants are often given ogrish traits (such as the giants in "Jack and the Beanstalk" and "Jack the Giant Killer", the Giant Despair in The Pilgrim's Progress, and the jötnar of Norse mythology); while ogres may be given giantish traits.

Further examples of famous folktales featuring ogres include "Puss in Boots" and "Hop-o'-My-Thumb"; while the most famous ogres in modern fiction are the eponymous main character Shrek and his wife Fiona from the animated comedy film series of the same name. Other characters and monsters sometimes comparable to or described as ogres in trait include the titular husband in "Bluebeard", the Beast from Beauty and the Beast, Humbaba from the Epic of Gilgamesh, Grendel from Beowulf, the Cyclops Polyphemus from Homer's Odyssey, the related cyclops in the tales of Sinbad the Sailor, and the oni of Japanese folklore.

Etymology

Puss in Boots before the ogre (illustrated by Walter Crane).

The word ogre is of French origin, originally derived from the Etruscan god Orcus, who fed on human flesh. Its earliest attestation is in Chrétien de Troyes' late 12th-century verse romance Perceval, li contes del graal, which contains the lines:

Et s'est escrit que il ert ancore
 que toz li reaumes de Logres,
 qui jadis fu la terre as ogres,
 ert destruite par cele lance.
"And it is written that he will come again,
to all the realms of Logres,
known as the land of ogres,
and destroy them with that lance."

The ogres in this rhyme may refer to the ogres who were, in the pseudohistorical work History of the Kings of Britain by Geoffrey of Monmouth, the inhabitants of Britain prior to human settlement. The Italian author Giambattista Basile (1575–1632) used the related Neapolitan word uerco, or in standard Italian, orco in some of his tales. This word is documented[1] in earlier Italian works (Fazio degli Uberti, 14th century; Luigi Pulci, 15th century; Ludovico Ariosto, 15th–16th centuries) and has even older cognates with the Latin orcus and the Old English orcnēas found in Beowulf lines 112–113, which inspired J.R.R. Tolkien's Orc.[2] All these words may derive from a shared Indo-European mythological concept (as Tolkien himself speculated, as cited by Tom Shippey, The Road to Middle-earth, 45). The Dictionary of the Academy of France alternatively states that the name is derived from the word Hongrois, which means Hungarian, as of western cultures referred to Hungarians as a kind of monstrosity.[3] Ogre could possibly also derive from the biblical Og, last of the giants (or from the Greek river god Oiagros, father of Orpheus).

The word ogre came into wider usage in the works of Charles Perrault (1628–1703) or Marie-Catherine Jumelle de Berneville, Comtesse d' Aulnoy (1650–1705), both of whom were French authors. The first appearance of the word ogre in Perrault's work occurred in his Histoires ou Contes du temps Passé (1696). It later appeared in several of his other fairy tales, many of which were based on the Neapolitan tales of Basile. The first example of a female ogre being referred to as an ogress is found in his version of Sleeping Beauty, where it is spelled ogresse. Madame d'Aulnoy first employed the word ogre in her story L'Orangier et l'Abeille (1698), and was the first to use the word ogree to refer to the creature's offspring.

Fairy tales that feature ogres

Hop-o'-My-Thumb steals the ogre's seven-league boots (illustrated by Gustave Doré, 1862).

In illustration

In sculpture

See also

Media related to Ogre at Wikimedia Commons

References

  • Rose, Carol. Giants, Monsters, & Dragons: An Encyclopedia of Folklore, Legend, and Myth. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2001. ISBN 0-393-32211-4
  • Shippey, Tom. The Road to Middle-earth. London: HarperCollins, 1992 (rev.). ISBN 0-261-10275-3
  • South, Malcolm, ed. Mythical and Fabulous Creatures: A Source Book and Research Guide. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1987. Reprint, New York: Peter Bedrick Books, 1988. ISBN 0-87226-208-1
  • Kathrine Mary Briggs The Fairies in Tradition and Literature
  • "Ogre." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2006. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 15 May 2006, search.eb.com

Notes

  1. ↑ Vocabolario Degli Accademici Della Crusca Archived 2007-10-13 at the Wayback Machine.
  2. ↑ "Beowulf". Humanities.mcmaster.ca. Retrieved 2012-03-28.
  3. ↑ Dictionnaire de l'Académie française (1932–35)
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