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A Healer's Tale  by Lindelea 8 Review(s)
LarnerReviewed Chapter: 7 on 5/18/2005
I truly LIKE Sweetbriar. Very good characterization, wonderful imagery.

Anso the HobbitReviewed Chapter: 7 on 4/16/2005
She`s lefthanded! Very nasty one that old Mistress of hers. I`m very happy she got to a better one, and what a wonderful healer she turns out in the end. Very nice, Lin! :)

FantasyFanReviewed Chapter: 7 on 4/11/2005
I'm sure you'll get many replies of this kind, from everyone who has a left-handed family. My dad used to have his hand slapped in school when he would forget and use the left, and although I cannot remember now exactly how the story goes, once he ended up with a bloody lip too (something about having his head pushed into the drinking fountain). None of it worked, and my father does everything left-handed to this day. By the time my sister Amy was in school, they were no longer punishing left-handers, but they did force her to choose which hand she would use and stick to it. (My son says, "Why did they care?") She does most things left-handed but not everything. Last week I had to use the computer at my dad's with the mouse on the left, so I have gotten a personal experience of just how tough it is to try to use the non-dominant hand.

Mysterious JediReviewed Chapter: 7 on 4/10/2005
So she was predominantly left-handed, and beaten for it? I think she'll do much better once she practices using her leftie again!

Author Reply: I think so too!

(I can't imagine if the "left" were the right and I was forced to be a "lefty"!)

Connie B.Reviewed Chapter: 7 on 4/10/2005
How sad for Woodruff that she was so punished for simply being left-handed. I know that at times in the past this was considered abnormal, but it's still wrong to do that to her. I'd love to help Sweetbriar flatten Rosie Bracegirdle's nose. It sounds like Woodruff may have gotten out from under her old mistriss just in time.

On another note: it's so sad that the Paladin of Pippin's early years was lost to Paladin the Thain. He was such a sweet and down-to-earth hobbit. If only there had been a way for him to not lose himself to his position, how different things might have been...for everyone, especially his son.

Thanks.

Connie B.

Author Reply: Yes, things might have been very different.

Want to know something that might be construed as silly? I have an alternate timeline, still "canon" according to JRRT's works, but very different from the timeline I've been writing along the past three years. It has a warm and loving Paladin-Pippin relationship, for one thing, and the Thainship does not force him to leave the land. After all, Pippin tells Beregond (or is it Bergil?) that his father "farms the lands around Whitwell".

But who knows if and when I'll have time to develop stories from that timeline...

Thanks!

Hai TookReviewed Chapter: 7 on 4/9/2005
It has beena while since I have had time to catch up on things! I loved the chapter with Merry, Woodruff and baby Pippin. I liked Merry talking about all his cousins being lasses and that this must be the one Frodo spoke about. Wonderful!

Pippin has been a wonderful Thain with sending for Woodruff's beloved knowing she would also need comfort. Then sending for him again knowing he will pass.

That she had been beaten by Ms. Bracegirdle for using her left hand! Did I understand that right? I love the indignation that you gave Sweetbriar when she found out. Now maybe they will both be able to settle more naturally into their home! Looking forward to more!

Author Reply: Yes, you did understand that. One of my elderly relatives was left-handed, and he talked about how in the old days they used to punish "lefties" to get them to use their right hand instead. They might even resort to bandaging the hand or tying it behind one's back, if the "lefty" proved to be stubborn. I put that together with an anecdote a piano teacher told me about a concert pianist whose teacher beat her hands with a switch, sometimes drawing blood, when she made mistakes, and now you know what went into writing the chapter.

Thanks!

DreamflowerReviewed Chapter: 7 on 4/9/2005
Oh I *do* hope Sweetbriar *does* get a chance to flatten that Bracegirdle's nose! Or something! I'd dearly *love* to see an encounter between the two now that she knows what was going on! Sheesh! Of course, what can you expect of someone who's related to Lobelia...

Author Reply: Well, there will be another encounter, so you have something to look forward to!

Thanks!

BodkinReviewed Chapter: 7 on 4/9/2005
Nasty, spiteful, narrow-minded Rosie Bracegirdle. (Not that it was uncommon to force lefties into using their right hand that way. After all, any deviation from the average must by definition be bad, mustn't it!)

Thank goodness for Sweetbriar. Woodruff'll be devoted to her for ever after this addition to the evidence that she is kind and loving and will not tolerate injustice.

And Ted is nicely handy - and obliging.

Author Reply: Well, Ted is the best grand a gran could ever have, after all.

An elderly relative of mine told me of being switched from using his left hand to his right hand, back to his left (by an enlightened teacher) and then back to his right, until he couldn't read his own writing by the time he finished school...

Thanks!

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