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Things of Middle-earth

Orc-draughts

Type: Food & Drink

Description:

A potent healing potion used by the Orcs, apparently for strength and endurance.
[Uglúk] cut the thongs round Pippin's legs and ankles, picked him up by his hair and stood him on his feet. Pippin fell down, and Uglúk dragged him up by his hair again. Several Orcs laughed. Uglúk thrust a flask between his teeth and poured some burning liquid down his throat: he felt a hot fierce glow flow through him. The pain in his legs and ankles vanished. He could stand.

'Now for the other!' said Uglúk. Pippin saw him go to Merry, who was lying close by, and kick him. Merry groaned....

When he had forced a drink from his flask down the hobbit's throat, cut his leg-bonds, and dragged him to his feet, Merry stood up, looking pale but grim and defiant, and very much alive.

The Two Towers, LoTR Book 3, Ch 3, The Uruk-Hai

The warmth of the orc-draught had gone. Pippin felt cold and sick again. Suddenly he fell face downward on the turf. Hard hands with rending nails gripped and lifted him. He was carried like a sack once more, and darkness grew about him: whether the darkness of another night, or a blindness of his eyes, he could not tell....

There he lay for a while, fighting with despair. His head swam, but from the heat in his body he guessed that he had been given another draught.

The Two Towers, LoTR Book 3, Ch 3, The Uruk-Hai

'I could stagger on now. What about you, Merry?'

Merry got up. 'Yes,' he said, 'I can manage it. Lembas does put heart into you! A more wholesome sort of feeling, too, than the heat of that orc-draught. I wonder what it was made of. Better not to know, I expect. Let's get a drink of water to wash away the thought of it!'

The Two Towers, LoTR Book 3, Ch 3, The Uruk-Hai

Orcs were all round me. I think they had just been pouring some horrible burning drink down my throat. My head grew clear, but I was aching and weary.

The Return of the King, LoTR Book 6, Ch 1, The Tower of Cirith Ungol

Contributors: Elena Tiriel 28Jan05, 4Aug07

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