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| - The Midgewater Marshes were where Aragorn and the Hobbits Frodo Baggins, Meriadoc Brandybuck, Peregrin Took, and Sam Gamgee had to cross on their journey to Rivendell. Chetwood was on the western side of the marshes, and the Weather Hills were to the east. The terrain of the marshes was boggy and unyielding, dotted with pools and reeds. The marshes were home to biting midges and annoying cricket-like insects that Sam Gamgee dubbed "Neekerbreekers."
- Just east of Bree-land, a basin in the Eriadoran upland collected much of the rainwater drainage from the southern part of the Weather Hills. It had no river outlet, and its waters drained underground westward to the Baranduin. The higher western side of the basin harbored the Chetwood, a steady source of wood and game for the folk of Bree. Nestled between the forest and the Weather Hills on the eastern side of the basin lay an oozing, boot-sucking swampland, the foggy Midgewater Marshes. Deer, wild cattle, and sheep dwelt amidst the usual array of creatures at home in the slimy muck and fetid waters of a marsh. Snakes, turtles, frogs, fish, muskrats, raccoons, and the like flourished in the fens, as did a maddening army of incessant nocturnal squeakers, the insects called neekerbreekers.
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abstract
| - The Midgewater Marshes were where Aragorn and the Hobbits Frodo Baggins, Meriadoc Brandybuck, Peregrin Took, and Sam Gamgee had to cross on their journey to Rivendell. Chetwood was on the western side of the marshes, and the Weather Hills were to the east. The terrain of the marshes was boggy and unyielding, dotted with pools and reeds. The marshes were home to biting midges and annoying cricket-like insects that Sam Gamgee dubbed "Neekerbreekers."
- Just east of Bree-land, a basin in the Eriadoran upland collected much of the rainwater drainage from the southern part of the Weather Hills. It had no river outlet, and its waters drained underground westward to the Baranduin. The higher western side of the basin harbored the Chetwood, a steady source of wood and game for the folk of Bree. Nestled between the forest and the Weather Hills on the eastern side of the basin lay an oozing, boot-sucking swampland, the foggy Midgewater Marshes. Deer, wild cattle, and sheep dwelt amidst the usual array of creatures at home in the slimy muck and fetid waters of a marsh. Snakes, turtles, frogs, fish, muskrats, raccoons, and the like flourished in the fens, as did a maddening army of incessant nocturnal squeakers, the insects called neekerbreekers. Their harsh, crazed, cricket-like cry—"neek-breek, breek-neek"—made sleep difficult for those not accustomed to the sheer intensity of life in the swamps. Hungry biting flies, pesky midges, and ferocious, large winged insects called Dumbledores were also frequent in the midgewater, carrying illnesses to which only the Breeland marshmen had any immunity. Gallows-weed draped the trees like aged moss; rumors also told of bloodthirsty phantoms called mewlips and cat-size hummerhorns— savage flying insects of lore who could reduce a man to a bloodless corpse in one brief night. The marshes were, understandably, not often visited by outsiders, but did serve as an eastern defense for Bree-land.
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