ladies of the court were trading their finery for bread , storekeepers struggled in vain to protect their wares from the growing crowds of famished people turned thieves , spirit servants consumed the herbs used in their spells and tried to grow more on barren patches of earth , scribes boiled and ate their parchments , household animals disappeared into the bellies of their owners , while even more desperate people were seen at the shore that spread behind the scriptorium , trying to fish in waters that , since the disaster , were as lifeless as the drowning isles .