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on skills in health and healing
*obvs. this post is (besides the parts referencing animals) obviously going to lean more heavily on Tolkien’s Elves than the race of Men. This is by the nature of Celegorm’s place in the story, and the structure of Valinor/the First Age and overwhelming Elf-presence there.
Beginning, the Elves are between their fëa and hröa much more attuned and balanced than Men. So I believe there is little, or actually no need at all for them to take a physical look inside their bodies to understand them. Yes, there is a baseline of anatomical knowledge that one may attain but it has never come from the study of corpses or cutting living bodies for the purpose of learning. One elf might in time, most likely throughout their first hundred years of growth, come to a basic understanding of their physical form. Basic, though, already forming the—in comparison to Men—heightened baseline that allows them to withstand more and sustain themselves through greater hardships.
In Valinor, then, it would have seemed that there is little healing on the bodies of the Eldar to be done. ( Only Miriel’s death is known there at all before the darkening, and she died not from injury either. )
So what Celegorm, first, most learned in were the bodies of animals.
As much as Oromë taught him the hunt he also, as we know, taught him the speech of all creatures in Aman, and so he taught Celegorm as well how and by what power they moved and lived. For hunting it was to know how and what parts to take, watching how they walked and how the chase would go, if one was aged or weary. ( Valinor is not truly fenced from death, but it’s the souls of Elves that are immortal. The kelvar of Arda have spirits that are in contact with their bodies also, but do not possess souls that forever bind them. ) Also in the woods and pastures of Yavanna there were plants that could be moulded into powders, into pastes; things that attracted or deterred. Still more a hunter. But then, knowing the anatomy of animals naturally moved him to understanding that of his kin beyond his own. And Elven healing and “healing magic” is that first and foremost: to understand the relationship between body and soul beyond one’s own. To see what might be mended one way and what another.
We know that wounds need be great to really harm Elves, frankly. And great—I, at least, am taking as—being that the fëa no longer has the understanding of it and the knowledge how to mend it. Because physical injury ( or extreme grief, on the other hand, just to mention ) is not the natural state, does not suit the usual understanding and in-tune-ness that there is between fëa and hröa. So small injuries that deviate the body from an understanding, in this way, may still be overpowered by the fëa, but not more grievous hurts that change the body too much from what the fëa understands.
So while much of the healthfulness of the Elves is generally maintained by, for lack of better words, the sheer will of it there are times when that will fails. There is a time when, for all Elven power over the physical, they still need to resort to physically mending their bodies. While on one hand it seems there would be no need for it—and indeed little in Valinor, in truth—even Elves, or especially, in a new way, have great need of physical medicine.
And Celegorm, for one, was fast to that for his previous understanding of other bodies, through what he learned by Oromë, and knowing herbs and such. And soon the sons of Fëanor first had great need of it when coming to fight in Beleriand, and he learned even more as they needed more.
But at the same his skill diminished, as is wont with the Eldar: those who deal war and harm and hurt, they do not deal healing.
As for Men, wounds that to them are quiet tragic and threatening are less on Elven bodies. But since their body-and-soul connection is more fragile there is a different risk. Celegorm, as much as we’re told, doesn’t have overmuch contact with Men. Though if he did and needed to, again he’d have skill to understand their anatomy—they’re less different from Elves, after all, than animals, perhaps he could do it.
Beginning, the Elves are between their fëa and hröa much more attuned and balanced than Men. So I believe there is little, or actually no need at all for them to take a physical look inside their bodies to understand them. Yes, there is a baseline of anatomical knowledge that one may attain but it has never come from the study of corpses or cutting living bodies for the purpose of learning. One elf might in time, most likely throughout their first hundred years of growth, come to a basic understanding of their physical form. Basic, though, already forming the—in comparison to Men—heightened baseline that allows them to withstand more and sustain themselves through greater hardships.
In Valinor, then, it would have seemed that there is little healing on the bodies of the Eldar to be done. ( Only Miriel’s death is known there at all before the darkening, and she died not from injury either. )
So what Celegorm, first, most learned in were the bodies of animals.
As much as Oromë taught him the hunt he also, as we know, taught him the speech of all creatures in Aman, and so he taught Celegorm as well how and by what power they moved and lived. For hunting it was to know how and what parts to take, watching how they walked and how the chase would go, if one was aged or weary. ( Valinor is not truly fenced from death, but it’s the souls of Elves that are immortal. The kelvar of Arda have spirits that are in contact with their bodies also, but do not possess souls that forever bind them. ) Also in the woods and pastures of Yavanna there were plants that could be moulded into powders, into pastes; things that attracted or deterred. Still more a hunter. But then, knowing the anatomy of animals naturally moved him to understanding that of his kin beyond his own. And Elven healing and “healing magic” is that first and foremost: to understand the relationship between body and soul beyond one’s own. To see what might be mended one way and what another.
We know that wounds need be great to really harm Elves, frankly. And great—I, at least, am taking as—being that the fëa no longer has the understanding of it and the knowledge how to mend it. Because physical injury ( or extreme grief, on the other hand, just to mention ) is not the natural state, does not suit the usual understanding and in-tune-ness that there is between fëa and hröa. So small injuries that deviate the body from an understanding, in this way, may still be overpowered by the fëa, but not more grievous hurts that change the body too much from what the fëa understands.
So while much of the healthfulness of the Elves is generally maintained by, for lack of better words, the sheer will of it there are times when that will fails. There is a time when, for all Elven power over the physical, they still need to resort to physically mending their bodies. While on one hand it seems there would be no need for it—and indeed little in Valinor, in truth—even Elves, or especially, in a new way, have great need of physical medicine.
And Celegorm, for one, was fast to that for his previous understanding of other bodies, through what he learned by Oromë, and knowing herbs and such. And soon the sons of Fëanor first had great need of it when coming to fight in Beleriand, and he learned even more as they needed more.
But at the same his skill diminished, as is wont with the Eldar: those who deal war and harm and hurt, they do not deal healing.
As for Men, wounds that to them are quiet tragic and threatening are less on Elven bodies. But since their body-and-soul connection is more fragile there is a different risk. Celegorm, as much as we’re told, doesn’t have overmuch contact with Men. Though if he did and needed to, again he’d have skill to understand their anatomy—they’re less different from Elves, after all, than animals, perhaps he could do it.