Did the Orcs Use Magic to Heal Merry’s Wound?

Did the Orcs Use Magic to Heal Merry’s Wound?

ANSWER: Technically, both Merry and Pippin were treated by the Orcs for their wounds. Here is the passage in question, from The Two Towers:

A shadow bent over Pippin. It was Uglúk. ‘Sit up!’ said the Orc. ‘My lads are tired of lugging you about. We have got to climb down and you must use your legs. Be helpful now. No crying out, no trying to escape. We have ways of paying for tricks that you won’t like, though they won’t spoil your usefulness for the Master.’He cut the thongs round Pippin’s legs and ankles, picked him up by his hair and stood him on his feet. Pippin fell down, and Uglúk dragged him up by his hair again. Several Orcs laughed. Uglúk thrust a flask between his teeth and poured some burning liquid down his throat: he felt a hot fierce glow flow through him. The pain in his legs and ankles vanished. He could stand.

‘Now for the other!’ said Uglúk. Pippin saw him go to Merry, who was lying close by, and kick him. Merry groaned. Seizing him roughly Uglúk pulled him into a sitting position, and tore the bandage off his head. Then he smeared the wound with some dark stuff out of a small wooden box. Merry cried out and struggled wildly.

The Orcs clapped and hooted. ‘Can’t take his medicine,’ they jeered. ‘Doesn’t know what’s good for him. Ai! We shall have some fun later.’

But at the moment Uglúk was not engaged in sport. He needed speed and had to humour unwilling followers. He was healing Merry in orc-fashion; and his treatment worked swiftly. When he had forced a drink from his flask down the hobbit’s throat, cut his leg-bonds, and dragged him to his feet, Merry stood up, looking pale but grim and defiant, and very much alive. The gash in his forehead gave him no more trouble, but he bore a brown scar to the end of his days.

So I was asked if I think the stuff that Uglúk smeared on Merry’s forehead was some sort of magical Orc ointment or perhaps something made by Saruman.

This question immediately refers to the Great Debate about what constitutes “magic” in Tolkien’s Middle-earth. Far too many people cite Letter No. 155 (an unsent draft composed for Naomi Mitchison in 1954; she was proof-reading the manuscript of The Lord of the Rings for George Allen & Unwin). When it comes to understanding Tolkien’s views on “magic” in Middle-earth, Letter No. 155 carries almost no authority whatsoever because it becomes clear, by the end of the letter, that Tolkien was philosophizing as he wrote. He caught himself in the act and wrote a note in the margin that he had contradicted the story (see note 2 for this letter). The introduction to the letter clearly states, “A passage from a draft of the above letter, which was not included in the version actually sent.” Humphrey Carpenter did Tolkien fans a great disservice by including this fragment in The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien without further commentary, because the vast majority of readers assume that this fragment represents Tolkien’s thought on magic.

What it represents is an ephemeral moment in the author’s attempt to explain a very complex work of literature.

In The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, Tolkien’s “magic” simply represents the native ability of certain characters to effect certain results without the use of things we would normally resort to. His magical items are more durable, faster, more effective, almost have a life of their own, etc. We can, via modern technology, replicate many if not all of Tolkien’s magical devices (even the mind control of the One Ring replicates real-world practices used to radicalize and mislead large groups of people).

But what we cannot do is create these effects via our wills. Everything that is accomplished via the thought and focus or willpower of the character represents “magic” as we define it, but not necessarily as Tolkien tried to explain it (on more than one occasion). Of course, we can turn to Letter No. 131, which Tolkien wrote to Collins publisher Milton Waldman when he was trying to find another publisher for The Lord of the Rings:

I have not used ‘magic’ consistently, and indeed the Elven-queen Galadriel is obliged to remonstrate with the Hobbits on their confused use of the word both for the devices and operations of the Enemy, and for those of the Elves. I have not, because there is not a word for the latter (since all human stories have suffered the same confusion). But the Elves are there (in my tales) to demonstrate the difference. Their ‘magic’ is Art, delivered from many of its human limitations: more effortless, more quick, more complete (product, and vision in unflawed correspondence). And its object is Art not Power, sub-creation not domination and tyrannous re-forming of Creation. The ‘Elves’ are ‘immortal’, at least as far as this world goes: and hence are concerned rather with the griefs and burdens of deathlessness in time and change, than with death. The Enemy in successive forms is always ‘naturally’ concerned with sheer Domination, and so the Lord of magic and machines; but the problem: that this frightful evil can and does arise from an apparently good root, the desire to benefit the world and others — speedily and according to the benefactor’s own plans — is a recurrent motive.

Whatever it is that these characters can do, it all comes from the same place. “Nothing is evil in the beginning”, as Elrond says. Tolkien was trying to use a word, “magic”, to describe things that are the result of more than just acquired skill and knowledge. There is a power of a very personal kind that is imparted from craftsman into artifact, as the Elves of Lorien explain to Sam. The Ring epitomizes this principle, as Tolkien illustrates in Letter No. 131 (“But to achieve this he had been obliged to let a great part of his own inherent power (a frequent and very significant motive in myth and fairy-story) pass into the One Ring.”).

And so we come back to who made the draft (draught) and oitment used to heal Pippin and Merry. In my opinion, unsupported by any direct statement of the author, they were simply made by the Orcs. I doubt Saruman would have cared about such mundane things and the Orcs themselves were very accomplished craftsmen. They had both knowledge and skills comparable to those of Men and perhaps Elves and Dwarves. They may not have possessed equivalent power on personal levels, but that is an entirely speculative matter.

Whether they were “magical” or the products of “magic” is really unimportant to the story. Tolkien leaves it to the reader to infer what the Orcs were capable of. I think, however, that he implies their thoughts were imparted into these things because of the way he describes them: crude but effective. The Orcs had no desire for art and artistry. Their needs for skill were entirely functional, probably reserved for the good of the community rather than the accomplishments of the individual. The Orcs represent the loss of individuality, a grief to Tolkien in real life, who often compared life in the military to the lives of the Orcs. They were soldiers and they did not need beauty and mysticism. They just needed to do their jobs. I can imagine a chamber in an Orc community where Orcs manufacture all sorts of practical necessities including medicines and poisons, but that is just the way I would picture it.

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See also:

• Are There Two Kinds of Magic in Middle-earth?
• Can Dwarves Use Magic?
• Can Men Use Magic in Middle-earth?
• How Did Elvish Magic Work in Middle-earth?
• How Rare was Magic in Middle-earth? Should Gamers Have Lots of Magic Items?
• Magic by Melkor, No Returns Accepted
• The Magic of the Minstrels

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