Tolkien's goblins recalled essence of yellow parchment, say (6)
I believe the answer is:
scroll
'parchment say' is the definition.
(a scroll might be a piece of parchment)
'tolkien's goblins recalled essence of yellow' is the wordplay.
'tolkien's goblins' becomes 'orcs' (goblin-like creatures in JRR Tolkien's books).
'recalled' says the letters should be written backwards.
'essence of' means to look at the middle letters.
The middle letters of 'yellow' are 'll'.
'orcs' written backwards gives 'scro'.
'scro'+'ll'='SCROLL'
(Other definitions for scroll that I've seen before include "Coiled parchment etc" , "Round shape formed by a series of concentric circles" , "Move text up and down computer screen" , "Roll of paper - move text up and down" , "Move text across screen" .)