The Mewlips

[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)