Leeches?

[The Squatter of Amon Rûdh]

ninja91, the fact that we now know something to be an appropriate leechdom doesn't mean that it was common practice in medieval medicine.

It occurs to me that if Imrahil wanted leeches (the aquatic bloodsuckers), it seems a very odd way to ask for them to say: "Men of Rohan! Are there no leeches among you?" That would imply that some of the Men of Rohan were slimy invertebrates, which is at least impolitic. Besides, Imrahil knows better than to think that slapping on a few leeches would revive someone who is 'hurt, to the death maybe'.

I've had a few more thoughts on this since yesterday, which I hope may prove useful.

I think I was probably going too far to ascribe to Tolkien a preference for words derived from Old English. In this narrative context, speaking to the Men of Rohan, it would be more natural to use a Rohirric word for a physician. Since that language is represented by slightly modernised Old English in LotR, 'leech' and 'leechcraft' are the best words to use. There is also a certain amount of semantic politics going on here, since the more usual modern English terms are derived from Latin and carry overwhelmingly scientific overtones that are not compatible with the sort of society that Tolkien was depicting.

In English and Welsh (O'Donnell lecture, University of Oxford, 21 October 1955) Tolkien said:

In Welsh there is not as a rule the discrepancy that there is so often in English between words of this sort [more long-winded and bookish words] and the words of full aesthetic life, the flesh and bone of the language. Welsh annealladwy, dideimladrwydd, amhechadurus, atgyfodiad, and the like are far more Welsh, not only as being analysable, but in style, than incomprehensible, insensibility, impeccable, or resurrection are English.

In other words, the division between scientific or cultivated language and that of everyday speech that is so evident in English is far less pronounced in Welsh. This was not always the case: a thousand years ago, English had its own words for (to pick examples at random) conjugation and medicine, but centuries of preference for Latin and Greek learning and French culture have driven a wedge between elevated and everyday speech; a separation which Tolkien clearly found distasteful. For the above reasons, I think it almost inevitable that he would choose to use a very old and yet perfectly sound word to stand in for physician, which has followed a contorted path into English from Greek, via Latin and Old French.