Library: Medicines of Brithombar and Eglarest

Here follows the description of a book which may be found in certain libraries. The author is given as “Mornariel of Nargothrond.” This text is dated from early in the First Age, but this edition was copied onto new parchment approximately 800 years ago, and is quite fragile. The handwriting is very neat. Copies of this text by itself can be found in Mithlond and Imladris. The crumbled remnants of the original text are in Mithlond. The foreword praises the Sindar for their knowledge of the things that grow from the Earth, and expresses the hope that their wisdom can be shared for the benefit of all elvenkind. There is also a thread of admiration which begins here and runs throughout the book, speaking of the hardships Círdan’s folk have suffered at the hands of the Great Enemy. The first section describes and indexes the plants, seaweeds, lichens, mosses, and other useful things that grow in the coastal area of the Falas. It is very like the earlier work ‘Herbs of the Narog’ in structure, and indeed many of the plants featured therein are duplicated here. The second section goes into great detail of how each element is used in the treatment of wounds and poison, sometimes giving accounts from healers themselves, who had been there when the host of Morgoth had brutally driven Círdan’s folk far to the West. There is much attention given to the preparation of elements – distilling extracts from plants, blending them together, turning plant-fibre into soft fabric for bandages – but yet more is given over to their use in the field – how they may best be preserved and efficiently transported, how the wounded should be tended depending on the field of conflict, and supporting accounts of bravery and ingenuity.