The Mewlips

[Encaitare]

In "The Tolkien Reader" are a bunch of poems, supposed to have been taken from the Red Book (I believe). My favorite of these is called "The Mewlips":

The shadows where the Mewlips dwell
Are dark and wet as ink,
And slow and softly rings their bell,
As in the slime you sink.

You sink into the slime, who dare
To knock upon their door,
While down the grinning gargoyles stare
And noisome waters pour.

Beside the rotting river-strand
The drooping willows weep,
And gloomily the gorcrows stand
Croaking in their sleep.

Over the Merlock Mountains a long and weary way,
In a mouldy valley where the trees are grey,
By a dark pool's borders without wind or tide,
Moonless and sunless, the Mewlips hide.

The cellars where the Mewlips sit
Are deep and dank and cold
With single sickly candle lit;
And there they count their gold.

Their walls are wet, their ceilings drip;
Their feet upon the floor
Go softly with a squish-flap-flip,
As they sidle to the door.

They peep out slyly; through a crack
Their feeling fingers creep,
And when they've finished, in a sack
Your bones they take to keep.

Beyond the Merlock Mountains, a long and lonely road
Through the spider-shadows and the marsh of Tode,
And through the wood of hanging trees and the gallows-weed,
You go to find the Mewlips - and the Mewlips feed.

I was intrigued by this poem, which is very different from the other ones in the Reader, and from anything I have ever read by Tolkien -- much darker and grimmer, and it rather creeped me out. Since I had never heard of these Mewlip creatures before, I searched to find out anything I could about them. This was all I could find:

According to the lore of hobbits, an evil race of cannibal spirits called the mewlips settled in certain marshlands of Middle-earth. Hoarding phantoms very like the dreaded barrow-wights they seemed, but they made their homes in foul and dank swamps. Travellers in their lands always walked in peril, for many were said to be waylaid by these beings.

Does anyone know anything more about them, or if Tolkien ever mentioned them elsewhere? The style of the poem seems rather un-hobbitlike, as I said, a bit too dark for the usually jovial and light-hearted people. Perhaps Tolkien was in a rather dark mood or time when he wrote it?

Any help or discussion is appreciated!

[Gil-Galad]

Mewlips were probaly more Hobbit folklore... the hobbits probaly heard of barrow-wights and tried to expand it more, and of course aganiest travelers...the old hobbit slogan

[Meneltarmacil]

Much like barrow-wights, but living in swamps? I wonder if this might have something to do with the Dead Marshes.

[Encaitare]

Perhaps, although I doubt it because the Marshes were quite far from the Shire and the hobbits probably wouldn't know about them.

[Evisse the Blue]

You go to find the Mewlips - and the Mewlips feed.

I've always love that line. Sends shivers down one's spine, like all lines that leave a little room for imagination: "What do Mewlips feed on? Well, you, of course, who go to find them." lol. Very unhobbitlike, I agree. We never really heard mention of hobbits' horror stories, did we, although there may be an instance in FOTR when it is mentioned that hobbits liked listening to unusual stories, while they were safe inside their cosy homes. Kind of like us, actually.

[mark12_30]

You haven't mewed until you've heard the version by The Hobbitons.

Great stuff.

[Meneltarmacil]

Perhaps, although I doubt it because the Marshes were quite far from the Shire and the hobbits probably wouldn't know about them.

But also remember that the Hobbits used to live in the vale of Anduin, which was closer to the Dead Marshes. The tale might have originated there.

[davem]

Found this:http://users.cybercity.dk/~bkb1782/tolkien/mewlips.html

[Bêthberry]

I am not familiar with The Tolkien Reader, so I don't know how "The Mewlips" is discussed there, but I do have the poem in the collection it was published in, The Adventures of Tom Bombadil.

What is particularly fun about that collection is Tolkien's introduction. He writes a parody of academic or scholarly work, treating these faux-RedBook poems as true academic discoveries of early oral literature. Tolkien posits possible authorship, sources, derivations, etc. Some, he says, were marginalia--scribbled on the edges of the paper around other poems. He identifies one as written by Bilbo, another by Sam Gamgee and a third by "SG". He claims they represent "older pieces, mainly concerned with legends and jests of the Shire at the end of the Third Age." He mentions several of the poems by their numbers (Mewlips is #9), but he does not discuss "Mewlips".

Reading the Introduction is a hoot for anyone who knows the staid, formal, dry tones of academic discussion concerning early texts--Tolkien clearly pokes gentle fun at his own profession but quite possibly at his own creation as well, treating his legendarium to the kind of analysis usually reserved for "real life literature"--the philologist tweaking his own private hobby perhaps. I don't think the man's mind or imagination ever rested.

Copyright does not allow me to type out the entire Introduction, but here are a few passages to give you the flavour of Tolkien's fun.

No. 3 is an example of another kind which seems to have amused Hobbits: a rhyme or story which returns to its own beginning, and so may be recited until the hearers revolt.

The verses, of hobbit origin, here presented have generally two features i n common. They are fond of strange words, and of rhyming and metrical tricks--in their simplicity Hobbits evidently regarded such things as virtues or graces, though they were, no doubt, mere imitations of Elvish practices.

Though the influence of Elvish tradition is seen, they are not seriously treated, and the names used (Derrilyn, Thellamie, Belmarie, Aerie) are mere inventions in the Elvish style, and are not in fact Elvish at all.

I suspect this all makes fun of the scholarly attitude which dismissed Beowufl as serious literature because it included a dragon!

To me, ascribing the dark vision of "The Mewlips" to a particular dark moment in Tolkien's life would be to treat the poem far too seriously and to overlook Tolkien's humour as well as his own interest in recreating a folklore. The Mewlips are creatures much like many of the frightening bogey men in the folklore of early Britain. Here is a link which provides a rather cursory description of many of them:
Mysterious Britain

I would suggest as well that the effort to place the Mewlips themselves within Middle Earth geography is similarly too serious; the work does not appear to have been so seriously related or fixed to the Legendarium.

Or perhaps I should rather say that such endeavour likely could be made, but would be most successful if made in the same vein as Tolkien's own Introduction, as a bit of light-hearted sport!

[mark12_30]

I thihnk, if one *must* place mewlips into Middle-Earth, that they work best as folk-processed, distorted Barrow-Wights. Treasure, underground rooms, clinking coins, devoured victims, dampness (moors can be damp) and 'mountains' (hills-- how often do hobbits of the Shire get to see real mountains?) seem to me to be the stuff of old-wives-tales; based in a little reality, but distorted.

Or it could just be a old fashioned made-up bogey tale, told by Fredegar Bolger's nurse.

[Encaitare]

But also remember that the Hobbits used to live in the vale of Anduin, which was closer to the Dead Marshes. The tale might have originated there.

::smacks self on forehead:: I'd forgotten about that, so you may be correct after all!

davem -- Thanks for the link!

Bethberry-- It's the same in the Reader. I did get a few laughs out of the preface, but I was a little disappointed to find that the "origin" of the Mewlips poem (#9) was not given.

mark12_30's seems to make the most sense, although the very name of the Mewlips has gotten me thinking of them as little skulking catlike creatures, that walk upright but sort of crouched over, all black and nasty, rather than the ghostly Barrow-wights. It probably is just more of a distorted tale, though, as mark says.

[Man-of-the-Wold]

I've heard of Mewlips as suggesting a type of swamp-orc that would have inhabited the marshes around Mirkwood. It might hark back to primitive Hobbit fears at the time of when darkness and dread first emanated from Dol Guldor, and the wandering times began.

[HerenIstarion]

Moofeet are far less spookier. They are of folk contrivance, yet their origin may be traced back to the First Age and to Orome's hunters (and hunted, probably)

[davem]

Wonder if Tolkien was influenced by the story The Hobyahs first published in Joseph Jacobs collection 'More English Fairy Tales' in 1894:http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/eng/meft/meft27.htm

[Keeper of Dol Guldur]

I always wondered whether that poem was describing the gangrenous spirits who dwelt in the Dead Marshes.

I think it was the 'single candle lit' part that reminded me of the flickering candles in the marshes.

Of course, I always took the weird lights the hobbits and Gollum saw as Will o' the Wisps.

The Will o' the Wisp is the most common name given to the mysterious lights that were said to lead travellers from the well-trodden paths into treacherous marshes. The tradition exists with slight variation throughout Britain, the lights often bearing a regional name.

That's out of an article explaining Will o' the Wisps. It later references them as being malevolent spirits of dead, or non-human intelligence. They liked luring unwary travellers into dangerous situations.

In many places the Will o' the Wisp were associated with spirits of the dead who could not enter either heaven or hell, malignantly wandering the earth leading foolish travellers astray.

I don't know if the souls of all the elves who fell in the Last Alliance lingered, festered and became vile, or if spirits of Mordor inhabited the corpses and the marsh, but clearly whatever the spirits were, they weren't resting and relaxing in the Halls of Mandos.

More mundane explanations for the Will o' the Wisp come in the form of marsh gasses - natural methane - formed from rotting vegetation. The gas was thought to sometimes ignite spontaneously forming standing flames over boggy ground.

Which is totally what the movie depicted the marsh lights as.

It's interesting to note that another name for the Will o' the Wisp is this;

Corpse candles - related to graveyards and funeral processions.

Anyway, back on the subject of the Mewlips.

Clearly quicksand, slime, and dark waters are what the prey of the Mewlips fall into, and they see the grim faces of the Mewlips looking at them.

Presently it grew altogether dark: the air itself seemed black and heavy to breathe. When lights appeared Sam rubbed his eyes: he thought his head was going queer.

A wisp of pale sheen (Will o' the Wisp, definitely). Some were like dimly shining smoke, some like misty flames.

One of the first questions Sam asked Gollum was; "who are they?"

Gollum looked up. A dark water was before him, and he was crawling on the ground, this way and that, doubtful of the way. 'Yes, they are all round us,' he whispered. 'The tricksey lights. Candles of corpses, yes, yes. Don't you heed them! Don't look! Don't follow them! Where's the master?'

Check this out;

Sam looked back and found that Frodo had lagged again. He could not see him. He went some paces back into the darkness, not daring to move far, or to call in more than a hoarse whisper. Suddenly he stumbled against Frodo, who was standing lost in thought, looking at the pale lights. His hands hung stiff at his sides; water and slime were dripping from them.

A lot of talk of darkness, and slime.

'Come, Mr. Frodo!' said Sam. 'Don't look at them! Gollum says we mustn't. Let's keep up with him and get out of this cursed place as quick as we can - if we can!'

And then, a few sentences later;

He fell and came heavily on his hands, which sank deep into the sticky ooze, so that his face was brought close to the surface of the dark mere. There was a faint hiss, a noisome smell went up, the lights flickered and danced and swirled. For a moment the water below him looked like some window, glazed with grimy glass, through which he was peering.

And that is when he saw the face of a dead thing staring back at him.

He sunk a little, and looked at the grim dead face of an evil spirit, which seemed to live under a little glazed, dirty glassy window beneath the water.

Sounds like the Mewlips to me. Tolkien mentioned noisome smell, and the Mewlip poem mentioned noisome waters, and;

The cellars where the Mewlips sit
Are deep and dank and cold
With single sickly candle lit;
And there they count their gold.

Their walls are wet, their ceilings drip;
Their feet upon the floor
Go softly with a squish-flap-flip,
As they sidle to the door.

Naturally gives the idea of a creature living UNDER very wet ground, possibly even under the marshes. It's entirely possible, that the bodies of many of the elves and men inhabiting the Dead Marshes were in their own Barrows. So in that way, these would be very 'wight-like' creatures. Swamp Wights. But a Barrow which has been overtaken by the cursed swamp would be a lot like a cellar which was literally under the swamp.

As for droopy willow and gorcrows, it mentions them being nearby, but I'd guess that since it talks about a rotting river strand, it could mean the basin beneath Rauros, where Anduin becomes a criss-cross of marsh delta, because those wetlands spread all the way to the Dead Marshes, with nothing separating them other than the desolate Noman Lands.

As for the Merlock Mountains, I have no idea.

But willow trees are grey, and since we know a lot of willows were found hedging Entwash, and on rivers in Rohan, it seems likely that there would be the occasional rotting willow tree within a short distance of the Dead Marshes, in Nindalf.

Again, the last stanza mentions the Merlock Mountains, which could be the Misty Mountains, but in all seriousness could be any other mountains. But that 'long and lonely road' could refer to Sauron's causeway, which heads due north just east of the Dead Marshes, across Dagorlad, north through the Brown Lands and around up to Dol Goldur, but also likely splits off and heads north into Wilderland.

Through 'spider-shadows' could definitely be referencing Mirkwood. The Marsh of Tode could be ... the hard to travel marshes just east of Mirkwood on the River Running and the Forest River, they could be the Nindalf, or even the Dead Marshes themselves.

Through the wood of hanging trees, could definitely be referencing Fangorn.

I'm not sure about 'gallows-weed'. It seems like it could be an old fashioned term for some variety of grass growing in a swamp or scrubland, or it could be something Tolkien invented just because. Probably the old fashioned term is the more likely description.

That is where you'll find the Mewlips.

But could this very spot be the Mere of Dead Faces? That inky black pool of water in the very center of wight activity in the haunted marsh?

If you cross-reference that with Bilbo's journey, you can see the idea;

Just over the mountains, a long road takes you under the eaves of Mirkwood, down over lonely lands, to a distant marsh, where these fell creatures await in the deepest, darkest sections of the swamps.

Of course, Smeagol mentions that he has tried to reach them, tried to touch them, but they seem to be "only shapes to see, perhaps, not to touch."

Having attempted it, he may have more knowledge about their abilities than Hobbit poems, and discovered in his curiosity that they aren't out to collect bones, they are just trying to trick travellers into coming to a bad end.

Of course, once the traveller is dead, they may take his bones.

'Very carefully! Or hobbits go down to join the Dead ones and light little candles.'

So ... Gollum believed that the swamp wights indeed could have taken Frodo and Sam. How he discovered this, is a mystery. It's clear that Sam thought he had an idea of how.

So were the Mewlips the wights inhabiting the Dead Marsh?

I think it's pretty likely.

[Encaitare]

So were the Mewlips the wights inhabiting the Dead Marsh?

I think it's pretty likely.

Could be.

The part about the Will o' the Wisps was particularly interesting; the book "Faeries" (Brian Froud and Alan Lee!) offers a blurb about them:

In some remote areas a curious light resembling a flame is sometimes seen flickering in the distance. Traditionally known as ignis fatuns [I think that's what it says, it's hand-written], this is also called Will o' the Wisp in the British Isles. Although there are a number of theories on the nature of this phenomenon, no entirely satisfactory explanation has been put forward.

Seeing as the good Professor was British, it may very well be that he had these in mind when he wrote about the Dead Marshes.

I think a little fanfiction attempting to explain these curious Mewlips is in order.