Years ago, the Eglain kept hidden from travelers along the Great East Road, and even now, many in Bree-land do not know of us, or know little, some of it untrue. The need for trade has made us more visible and more welcoming, though we still cherish our independence.
Origins
Our tales tell that we started as wanderers after we abandoned life in a city, but we no longer remember what city, or where. It must be farther away than Bree, as the journey itself was (according to the tales, which may have been embellished) many years long. We already called ourselves the Eglain during this time of wandering, but no one knows if we chose the name for ourselves, or if it was given to us. The tales always depict our wandering as something we chose for ourselves, but if the name means "forsaken", then, forsaken by whom, if we chose to leave on our own?
When we found the Lone-lands, many generations ago, it was utterly abandoned and wild, but already long since dried out and as harsh as it is now. The Eglain chose it not because it was welcoming. In fact, its challenges may have been seen as a benefit, because not only was it free of the influence of any other people, it would likely remain so. We may sometimes envy the ease and plenty of the Soft Lands, but the hardships of learning to survive in a land that cares not for us are well worth it, to be free to live by our own rules, how we wish.
Ruin-holds
From the first, we have taken up ruins as a place to dwell, making them work for our purposes. We do not rebuild or repair them, nor do we change them much to suit our purposes. When we leave a Ruin-hold, it is almost exactly as it was when we settled in it. We use what shelter the Ruin-hold gives us, and make do with that.
Most of the ruins of the Lone-lands have a well (though in some cases, it is little more than a hole in the ground where water gathers, without any stones set above it). The Lone-lands yield up water only reluctantly, though, and a well that once served a whole city will now only barely serve a tribe of only a few score people. Over the years, the well struggles more and more, and eventually falters. We now take pains to supplement what our well provides to make it last longer. We build cisterns to catch rain and snow, and we buy or build barrels which we fill from the Hoarwell. We try to find Ruin-holds with another source of water nearby (like the Ruin-Pool). Even so, when the well begins to run dry, we move to a new Ruin-hold. While we're gone, the well will slowly recover; perhaps in our children's day, or their children's, that Ruin-hold will become a home for the Eglain once more. (Though most recently we dwelled in Naerost, as discussed in the Ruins chapter, and it is now held by goblin-like creatures that we cannot hope to drive out. Perhaps its well going dry will do our work for us.)
The ruins also keep the tribe alive in another way. The land cannot generally provide enough to feed us. If we were greater in number we could hunt more, but we would have more mouths to feed. We cannot farm; the soil will not sustain it. At best we have a few large garden patches which give us some vegetables to supplement what we hunt and gather. But the land does not provide enough prey to feed us, and if we hunted enough grouse to eat as well as the Bree-folk do, there would be no grouse at all within a few years. Deer used to be more common in the Lone-lands, but the early Eglain hunted them until there are few left.
To feed and supply ourselves, we now engage in trade, mostly with the caravans that pass on the Great East Road, though our scouts visit Bree-land more often for trade in recent years. The ruins provide trade goods in the form of ancient relics of Arnor. Small scraps of pottery, rusted tools, old coins, and torn parchment scrolls (though of no value to us) are much wanted by certain people, and the traders that travel through our lands have learned to bring foodstuffs and other goods we need to trade for them as they pass, so they can trade them on wherever they're going.
So far, the ruins continue to provide relics, but the tribe deliberates on what it might do if this source dries up. Goblins now hold two major ruins, and the number of scraps that can be found from ancient days must be even more limited than the herd of deer once was. This may be a problem our children must solve, or their children. Whatever solution they find, I hope they hold onto what makes us the Eglain, including our beloved homeland, and the freedom it affords.
The Tribe
Numbering only a few score, the tribe does all things together. We generally eat from one pot, sleep in one hall (though scouts have tiny rooms, just barely larger than the cots in them, to use, and the tribe elders share the lore-tower), and share all the work of the tribe. Needs that require special training, like healing, are done by an Eglan that knows how, but work that anyone can do, like feeding chickens, standing watch, weeding crops, or cutting firewood, are taken up by whoever isn't already busy when the need arises. Even the scouts join in those duties when they are back at the Ruin-hold. Children do what they can, and may grow into some role or other (for instance, a girl scarcely on the edge of womanhood handles our inventory of supplies and keeps track of what is needed, a duty she learned from her father before he died).
All work is done for the good of the tribe, though everyone is afforded some time to rest and take up whatever gives them joy: music, reading (we keep a handful of books for those who can read), sleep, courting, drawing, or simply being alone. We do not live like those in the cities, where each person's work is paid in coin, and all their needs must be met by that coin, so each person is alone in his effort to meet his own needs.
This makes it difficult when we visit the cities, as we do not carry coin, and what we do have belongs not to ourselves but to the tribe. For example, unlike most of my people, I enjoy a pipe now and then, but since all the work I do is for the tribe, where am I to earn the coin to pay for pipe-weed? Scouts of the Eglain are afforded some latitude, when trading, to use a tiny portion of what coin we earn for our own endeavors and interests, in recognition of the extra dangers we face, but only very little since most of it is needed to buy food for the tribe.
When describing the tribe to outsiders, it is often best to refer to us as a family, but that is probably true in the most literal sense. Most children born to the Eglain have members of the tribe for both parents (though occasionally a child is born to a woman who spent a night with someone outside the tribe), and if you traced our lines back far enough, we are probably all distant cousins. The tribe also accepts those from outside who choose to join, sometimes by marrying a member of the tribe, sometimes simply by speaking to the tribe elders of their interest, but in any case, they must spend a certain time proving their acceptance of the tribe's ways, and acclimating to them. Those from the Soft Lands find it challenging to truly accept the idea that you work for the tribe, not yourself, and what you need comes from the tribe, not yourself. Most who choose to join have a change of heart and withdraw during this time of testing.
Disputes amongst the tribe are very rare. When leadership is needed, the tribe's elders are consulted, but generally, tribe members make their own choices. Anyone who chooses to laze (rather than do whatever work needed doing that they were capable of doing) will attract notice in short order. In principle, someone who didn't take a warning about such behavior would be exiled, but this has not happened in living memory. The elders mostly make large decisions, like what Ruin-hold we will move to and when, though this is done in council with the tribe. One elder, presently Frideric, also serves as the leader of the scouts, receiving their reports and offering assignments.
Scouts
While any member of the tribe old enough to hold an axe has probably been taught how to defend herself, and every adult is ready to join the defense with lethal force should the tribe be attacked, a small number of Eglain go beyond this to serve as scouts. Long years ago, scouts would wear a stripe of war-paint to indicate their service, a tradition that has largely fallen out of use.
Scouts spend more time away from our Ruin-hold than other members of the tribe, carrying out a variety of assignments. Some of our work is literally scouting, keeping the tribe aware of both threats and opportunities that arise in the Lone-lands (and beyond). When goblins emerge and set up a camp, a scout will be the one to report this, and gather Eglain to burn it out before it can take root. When a trade caravan nears the edges of the Lone-lands, scouts mobilize the tribe to be ready to trade with them. Scouts also hunt, gather herbs for our healers, journey to the Soft Lands to carry out trade there, maintain relations with the Forsaken Inn and the Bree-landers that spend time there (notably the constable, Ashleaf), and when needed, do all the other duties that anyone else in the tribe may carry out. By necessity scouts are the most skilled in survival in the wilds of the Lone-lands, and are always capable warriors as well.
Scouts must know how to read and write, and carry a journal, ink-pot, and pen at all times. Using a simple code, scouts record what they learn and what assignments they are given. This is to ensure that, should a scout fall to an enemy or misfortune, another might pick up where they left off. Scouts sometimes leave encoded messages for one another, warning of danger or informing of important events. On return to the Ruin-hold, scouts present their journals to the elder for review, so the activities of all scouts can be coordinated. Thus, though the Eglain are few in number, little happens in the Lone-lands without being known to the tribe.
Relations
The Eglain have in the past been very standoffish and secretive. Certainly, we keep our own lives our own, and hold dear our independence, but we are also more welcoming to visitors than rumors would lead you to believe (provided those visitors mean the tribe no harm). Should the challenges of the Lone-lands prove difficult, do not hesitate to come to us for aid and shelter. And even if your travels through our homelands do not test your abilities, we will welcome you. Perhaps you will see what is hidden to most: the beauty of our life and our homeland. You may even wish to become one of us. If you do, you may be surprised how much freedom you've been living without.
