The Mewlips

The Mewlips is a hobbit poem, appearing in the work The Adventures of Tom Bombadil by J.R.R. Tolkien. It concerns the Mewlips, an imaginary race of evil creatures that feed on passers by, collecting their bones in a sack. The poem describes the long and lonely road needed to reach the Mewlips, travelling beyond the Merlock Mountains, and through the marsh of Tode and the wood of "hanging trees and gallows-weed". None of these names appear on any of the official maps of Middle-earth. There is a mention, in the same poem, of gorcrows, creatures who croak in their sleep; nothing more is said of them. Gorcrow is an old term for Carrion crow, a common Eurasian scavenging bird.