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

Anogre (feminine:ogress) is a legendarymonster usually depicted as a large, hideous,man-like being that eats ordinary human beings, especially infants and children.^[1] Ogres frequently feature inmythology,folklore, andfiction throughout the world. They appear in many classic works ofliterature, and are most often associated infairy tales and legend with a taste for infants.

In mythology, ogres are often depicted as inhumanly large, 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 inThe Pilgrim's Progress, and theJötunn ofNorse mythology); while ogres may be given giant-like traits.

Famous examples of ogres in folklore include the ogre in "Puss in Boots" and the ogre in "Hop-o'-My-Thumb". Other characters sometimes described as ogres include the title character from "Bluebeard", the Beast fromBeauty and the Beast,Humbaba from theEpic of Gilgamesh,Grendel fromBeowulf,Polyphemus theCyclops fromHomer'sOdyssey, the Man-eating giant in "Sinbad the Sailor", theOni ofJapanese folklore and theGhouls of pre-Islamic Arabian religion.

Etymology

Puss in Boots before the ogre (illustrated byWalter Crane).

The wordogre is ofFrench origin, originally derived from theEtruscan godOrcus, who fed on human flesh. Its earliest attestation is inChrétien de Troyes' late 12th-century verse romancePerceval, 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 ofLogres,
which was formerly land of ogres,
and destroy them with that lance."

Theogres in this rhyme may refer to the ogres who were, in thepseudohistorical workHistory of the Kings of Britain byGeoffrey of Monmouth, the inhabitants of Britain prior to human settlement. The Italian authorGiambattista Basile (1575–1632) used the relatedNeapolitan worduerco, or in standardItalian,orco in some of his tales. This word is documented^[2] 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 Latinorcus and the Old Englishorcnēas found inBeowulf lines 112–113, which inspiredJ.R.R. Tolkien'sOrc.^[3] All these words may derive from a shared Indo-European mythological concept (as Tolkien himself speculated, as cited byTom Shippey,The Road to Middle-earth, 45). The Dictionary of the Academy of France alternatively states that the name is derived from the wordHongrois, which meansHungarian, as of western cultures referred to Hungarians as a kind of monstrosity.^[4] Ogre could possibly also derive^{[citation needed]} from the biblicalOg, last of the giants (or from the Greek river godOiagros, father ofOrpheus).

The wordogre came into wider usage in the works ofCharles Perrault (1628–1703) orMarie-Catherine Jumelle de Berneville, Comtesse d' Aulnoy (1650–1705), both of whom were French authors. The first appearance of the wordogre in Perrault's work occurred in hisHistoires ou Contes du temps Passé (1696). It later appeared in several of his other fairy tales, many of which were based on theNeapolitan tales of Basile. The first example of a female ogre being referred to as anogress is found in his version ofSleeping Beauty, where it is spelledogresse.Madame d'Aulnoy first employed the wordogre in her storyL'Orangier et l'Abeille (1698), and was the first to use the wordogree to refer to the creature's offspring.

Fairy tales that feature ogres

Hop-o'-My-Thumb steals the ogre'sseven-league boots (illustrated byGustave Doré, 1862).

• Hop-o'-My-Thumb
• Puss in Boots
• Sleeping Beauty
• The Bee and the Orange Tree
• Finette Cendron orCunning Cinders
• Bearskin
• Tale of the Ogre
• The Flea
• The Enchanted Doe
• Violet
• The Dove
• Corvetto
• The Three Crowns
• Liisa and the Prince
• Puss-cat Mew
• The Selfish Giant
• Garulfo

Ogres in popular culture

This articleappears to containtrivial, minor, or unrelated references topopular culture. Please reorganize this content to explain the subject's impact on popular culture,providing citations toreliable, secondary sources, rather than simply listing appearances. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed.(March 2018)

• All kinds of ogres appear inInuyasha as oni.
• Ogres appear as antagonists in the 1996 video gameQuake.
• Ogres appear as a player class in the Popular MMORPGEverQuest.
• Ogres are attackable NPCs in the MMORPGRuneScape.
• Nish and two other Ogres appear in the 2004 filmElla Enchanted.
• Ogres appear as antagonists in the 2018 video gameGod of War, despite not being traditionally associated with Norse mythology.
• Ogres exist as a major faction inWarhammer Fantasy Battle, where they ruled over parts of the world in kingdoms inspired by the Mongol Empire, while in its successorWarhammer: Age of Sigmar, they are largely roaming tribes. In both, they are ravenously hungry and famed for eating the flesh of other beings. InWarhammer 40,000, a subset of humanity has evolved to become enormously tall, unintelligent, and often very fat, named 'Ogryn', in reference to Ogres.
• Shrek is the eponymous ogre protagonist in theShrekseries of comedy films. Shrek engages in typical ogre behaviors like washing in mud and eating slugs, but otherwise is not monstrous. He only feigns nastiness and claims to eat people as a way to deter trespassers in hisswamp, which is the backbone of the first film's plot. He also appears to simply enjoy scaring people, due to years of being mistreated by humans simply for the fact he is an ogre and not because he ever did anything. Ogres in the Shrek series are portrayed as having about the same intelligence levels as humans and are not much different than humans aside from appearance and rather disgusting habits.
  • Ironically, no ogre appears in the 2011 spin-off filmPuss in Boots.
• An ogre named Mulgarath is the main antagonist inThe Spiderwick Chronicles, wherein theshapeshifting ability from the "Puss in Boots" story is shared by all ogres.
• Ogres are units for theOrc faction inWarlords Battlecry video games.
• Ogres are a barbaric race in theWarcraft franchise. One of its main characters, Rexxar, is a half-orc, half-ogre.
• Ogres are enemies inThe Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, andThe Elder Scrolls Online.
• Ogres are fourth-level creatures of the Stronghold faction in theHeroes of Might and Magic III.
• Ogres make an appearance asshock troops andpillagers from Mount Gundabad inThe Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies.
• Ogres are a race in theDungeons & Dragonsrole-playing game.
• Ogres are the monsters inCreepy issue #2 story "Ogre's Castle".
• Ogrest from the Dofus / Wakfu-Games / Anime. Created accidentally through alchemy, he became one of the majorantagonists of the game. Due to his love being spurned he is constantly mourning atop the mountain he calls his home, his tears regularly flooding the surrounding realms in an Event known as 'Chaos of Ogrest'
• Ogres is a name for one of the playable classes in theChangeling: The Lost role-playing game.
• Ogres are giant, dim-witted creatures that makeup Duke Igthorn's army in the animated TV seriesDisney's Adventures of the Gummi Bears
• Ogres appear as the titular enemies in the tactical role-playing video game seriesOgre Battle.
• Nivek Ogre, frontman of Canadian bandSkinny Puppy, named himself in reference to ogres.
• InFallout 3, the fiveSuper mutant behemoths resemble the classic fairytale ogres. They are aggressive, cannibalistic and dim-witted giants that carry rare loot and are armed with clubs.

Gallery

In illustration

• 

  Giovanni Lanfranco:Norandino and Lucina Discovered by the Ogre,oil on canvas, c. 1624

• 

  Gustave Doré (1832–1883):Bluebeard,woodcut from an 1862 edition ofHistoires ou contes du temps passé

• 

  Gustave Doré: Illustration forLe Petit Poucet, 1862

• 

  Gustave Doré: Illustration forLe Petit Poucet, 1862

• 

  Alexander Zick (1845–1907): Illustration forDer kleine Däumling

• 

  The ogre and his wife, illustration forHop-o'-My-Thumb from a late-19th-century German fairy tale book

• 

  Anoni in pilgrim's clothing

• 

  Kawanabe Kyōsai (1831–1889): An oni in wandering Buddhist priest's robes, 1864

• 

  Katsushika Hokusai (1760–1849): An oni being chased away by scattered beans, detail of a print

• 

  Political cartoon from 1900 depicting Australia as an ogre and referencing itsorigins as a penal colony

In sculpture

• 

  The ogre fromHop-o'-My-Thumb atEfteling,Netherlands

• 

  An ogre king represented atMandalay Hill,Myanmar

• 

  The ogress Sanda Muhki represented atMandalay Hill

• 

  A Japaneseoni

• 

  An oni inBeppu,Kyushu

• 

  Ogre Fountain (lit. "Child Eater Fountain") at Corn House Square,Bern ,Switzerland .

See also

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

External links

Look upogre in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• Media related toOgre at Wikimedia Commons

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