Uruk-hai
| Attributes | |
|---|---|
| Founder | Sauron |
| Home world | Middle-earth |
| Base of operations | Isengard, Mordor |
The Uruk-hai are fictional characters in J. R. R. Tolkien's fictional universe of Middle-earth. They are introduced in The Lord of the Rings as an advanced breed of orcs that serve Sauron and Saruman. The first uruks appeared out of Mordor in attacks on Gondor in T.A. 2475.
The name "Uruk-hai" has the element Uruk, which is a Black Speech word related to Orc, related to the word "Urko" in Tolkien's invented language of Quenya. The element hai means "folk", so "Uruk-hai" is "Orc-folk". A similar term is "Olog-hai" ("troll-folk"), used for a breed of especially strong and vicious trolls capable of surviving sunlight.
Christopher Tolkien describes "Uruks" as an anglicization of "Uruk-hai" and his father used the two terms interchangeably a number of times. While "Uruk-hai" means simply "Orc-folk", the term was reserved for the soldier orcs of Mordor and Isengard. The larger orcs called the smaller breeds snaga ("slave").
The Uruk-hai, described as large black orcs of great strength, first appeared from Mordor about the year 2475 of the Third Age, when they briefly took Ithilien and the city of Osgiliath. These original Uruks were of Sauron's breeding, but Saruman bred his own, which could endure sunlight. All Uruks were larger and stronger than other breeds of orc and consequently looked down upon and often bullied them.
In The Two Towers, Aragorn observes that the fallen Uruk-hai at Amon Hen had different gear than he had seen before: swords and bows like those of men, and shields and helmets set with the white hand and S-rune of Saruman.Treebeard speculates that Saruman had crossbred Orcs and Men. These orcs, who named themselves "the fighting Uruk-hai", made up a large part of Saruman's army, together with the Dunlendings and other human enemies of Rohan. They were faster, stronger, and larger than normal orcs, and could travel during the day without being weakened, although they still did not like it. Saruman fed them with human flesh. Saruman's Uruk-hai fought against the Rohirrim at the Battles of the Fords of Isen, at the first of which King Théoden's son Théodred was killed, and at the Battle of the Hornburg, where the vast majority of the Uruks were defeated and destroyed.
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