“The Mewlips” is a tongue-in-cheek—but creepy, none the less—poem by J.R.R. Tolkien, supposedly one of those drawn from Hobbit lore. The sort of thing one recited in the comfort and safety of home or tavern! The mewlips seem a thoroughly bad bunch of swamp dwellers who are apt to devour travelers through their realm.
It is quite likely (and I am definitely not the first to mention this) that Tolkien’s mewlips were inspired at least in part by Lord Dunsany’s gibbelins, found in his short story “The Hoard of the Gibbelins.” Tolkien knew and admired Dunsany’s work, and the story predated the poem by decades.
Now Dunsany’s story, as much of his work, was also not entirely serious, yet it is a deliciously spooky sort of tale. There is also a certain amount of implicit social criticism built into it. That also is not untypical of his work.
The story of the Gibbelins appeared in Lord Dunsany’s ‘The Book of Wonder,’ which is long out of copyright and available as a free ebook at Project Gutenberg. Dunsany is one of the founders of modern fantasy; I highly recommend reading at least some of his work and “The Book of Wonder” is a good place to start.
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