It's the little things

Just a quick note about two points that caught my eye in a book I was reading recently. The milieu is vaguely feudal (there's a king, and dukes, and lords, and serfs by any other name) with a layer of magic slathered on. BUT in one scene, the character walks by the laborers smoking around a fire in the cold - and I went "smoking?" When was tobacco introduced to Europe? But this isn't Europe, is it? But . . . smoking? They haven't been smoking before. Tiny, tiny point, and it certainly might fit in, but it felt odd. If they had been trading jokes, picking on each other, drinking mulled ale . . . but smoking seems quite odd to me.

The second point is similar. Someone is hurt, and the character breaks a "pressed willow bark tablet" in pieces. I know aspirin comes from willow bark, but a pressed willow bark tablet? I don't know of any bark that would easily be pressed into a tablet. Tea, or a tisane, or even chewing the bark I could buy. Here in Japan, many medicines come in powders - little paper packages with a dose of powder, slip it in your mouth and wash it down with a drink of something. So maybe something like that. But please, not a pressed willow bark tablet. That's just a lazy coverup for an aspirin tablet, and if you are going to do that, go ahead and give the person a pill.

Irritating.