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Rivendell ('' sjn, Imladris'') is a valley in J. R. R. Tolkien's fictional world of Middle-earth, representing both a homely place of sanctuary and a magical Elvish otherworld. It is an important location in '' The Hobbit'' and '' The Lord of the Rings'', being the place where the quest to destroy the One Ring began. Rivendell's feeling of peace may have contributed to the popularity of ''The Lord of the Rings'' during the war-troubled 1960s. Scholars have noted that Rivendell was the home of Elvish song, from the hymn to Elbereth, recalling Tolkien's Catholicism, to the complex Song of Eärendil with its multiple poetic devices. Others have written that it resembles the Celtic Otherworld of Tír na nÓg; and that it physically recalls the valley of Lauterbrunnen in Switzerland where Tolkien had gone hiking in 1911.


Etymology

''Rivendell'' is a direct translation or calque into English of the
Sindarin Sindarin is one of the fictional languages devised by J. R. R. Tolkien for use in his fantasy stories set in Arda, primarily in Middle-earth. Sindarin is one of the many languages spoken by the Elves. The word is a Quenya word. Called in Eng ...
Imladris, both meaning "deep valley". The name Rivendell is formed by two English elements: "riven" (split, cloven) and "dell" (valley). Imladris was also rendered "''Karningul''" in Westron, the "Common Tongue" of Middle-earth represented as English in the text of ''The Lord of the Rings.'' The house of Elrond in Rivendell is also called ''The Last Homely House East of the Sea,'' alluding to the wilderness ( Rhovanion) that lies east of the Misty Mountains.


Fiction


Geography

Rivendell lay in eastern Eriador at the edge of a narrow gorge of the river Bruinen (one of the main approaches to Rivendell comes from the nearby Ford of Bruinen), well hidden in the moorlands and foothills of the ''Hithaeglir'' or Misty Mountains. Contrary to the map of western Middle-earth published in '' The Lord of the Rings'', the Great East Road did not, in Tolkien's view, lead through Rivendell: Rivendell was maintained as a hidden valley away from the road to the High Pass. Like Hobbiton, it is at about the same latitude as Tolkien's workplace, Oxford.


History

Rivendell was founded in the Second Age after the dark lord Sauron's destruction of the Elvish land of Eregion. Rivendell remained as the only Elven settlement in eastern Eriador; Gil-galad gave Elrond the Ring Vilya, providing him with the power to protect Rivendell and slow the passage of time in its hidden valley: indeed, Rivendell kept its own calendar. Rivendell survived repeated attacks in the Third Age by the armies of the Witch-king of Angmar. Rivendell held the heirlooms of the
Rangers of the North A Ranger is typically someone in a military/paramilitary or law enforcement role specializing in patrolling a given territory, called “ranging”. The term most often refers to: * Park ranger or forest ranger, a person charged with protecting an ...
from the lost kingdom of Arnor, including the shards of Elendil's sword Narsil, the Sceptre of Annúminas, and the Star of Elendil. Elrond fostered the children of the heirs to Arnor's throne, the last being Aragorn. While in Rivendell, Aragorn met and fell in love with Elrond's daughter, Arwen. They were married after he was crowned king of both Gondor and Arnor. Sauron's enemies including Elrond formed the White Council, which met in Rivendell, as when the Council decided to eject the Necromancer from his fortress in Dol Guldur. The protagonists of ''The Hobbit'' take advice from Elrond in Rivendell. The protagonists of ''The Lord of the Rings'' meet in Rivendell, attend the Council of Elrond, and decide on the quest to destroy the One Ring. The hero Aragorn's sword is reforged as Andúril by Rivendell's smiths. When the One Ring is destroyed, Elrond's ring loses its power, and he leaves to sail for Valinor.


Analysis


Physical origins

The Rivendell valley may be based upon the valley of Lauterbrunnen in Switzerland, where Tolkien had gone hiking. Tolkien indeed stated that "From Rivendell to the other side of the Misty Mountains, the journey ... including the glissade
f Bilbo and the Dwarves F, or f, is the sixth letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''ef'' (pronounced ), and the plural is ''efs''. Hist ...
down the slithering stones into the pine woods ... is based on my adventures in Switzerland in 1911". The medievalist Marjorie Burns writes that Bilbo's approach to Rivendell parallels the early fantasy writer and translator of Norse legend William Morris's approach through the wilds of Iceland to a place he called "Water-dale" (''Vatnsdale''); both ride across uplands dotted with patches of green, becoming extremely tired; both then cross narrow ravines, and bogs; and both arrive at a hidden valley that offers shelter and comfort. In another place, Morris crosses a "narrow, bridge-like rock", just as Bilbo faces a "narrow bridge of stone without a parapet" on entering Rivendell.


A place of sanctuary

Matthew T. Dickerson Matthew T. Dickerson is an American academic working as a professor of computer science at Middlebury College in Vermont.J. R. R. Tolkien Encyclopedia The ''J. R. R. Tolkien Encyclopedia: Scholarship and Critical Assessment'', edited by Michael D. C. Drout, was published by Routledge in 2006. A team of 127 Tolkien scholars on 720 pages cover topics of Tolkien's fiction, his academic works, hi ...
'', writes that Rivendell consistently represents a sanctuary, a place that felt like home, throughout the legendarium. The journalist Jane Ciabattari writes that a major reason for the popularity of ''Lord of the Rings'' was the desire for escape among the Vietnam War generation. She compares the military-industrial complex with Mordor, and suggests that they yearned for a place of peace, just as Frodo Baggins felt an "overwhelming longing to rest and remain at peace… in Rivendell". Burns writes that Rivendell and the other Elvish realm of Lothlórien parallel the Celtic Otherworld (in Irish, Tír na nÓg), being hard to find, but if one is admitted and welcomed, one crosses a river, symbolising the spiritual transition from the ordinary realm, and "the weary adventurer is transported into a haven of Elven hospitality and delight". There are multiple markers of the transition: Burns notes that both "Riven" and "dell" suggest a low place into which one must descend; and that a descent is characteristic of Celtic tales of entry into the underground realm of the Tuatha Dé Danann, whose chiefs each rule a burial mound.


Heroic quest's starting-point

The philologist and Tolkien scholar Tom Shippey remarks that Tolkien, a
Christian Christians () are people who follow or adhere to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The words ''Christ'' and ''Christian'' derive from the Koine Greek title ''Christós'' (Χρι ...
, was extremely careful with dates and timelines, but that hardly any readers notice that the Fellowship sets out from Rivendell on its
quest A quest is a journey toward a specific mission or a goal. The word serves as a plot device in mythology and fiction: a difficult journey towards a goal, often symbolic or allegorical. Tales of quests figure prominently in the folklore of ever ...
on 25 December, the date of Christmas, and succeeds, destroying the Ring and causing the fall of Sauron, on 25 March, the date in Anglo-Saxon tradition for the Crucifixion. The Tolkien scholar Verlyn Flieger writes that both Frodo and Aragorn receive their renewed magic swords in Rivendell, marking them out as heroes in the epic tradition of Sigurd and Arthur, at the start of their quest.


Cultural allusions

Shippey contrasts the versions of the '' Old Walking Song'' sung by Bilbo and Frodo. Bilbo follows the "Road ... with eager feet", hoping to reach the peace of Rivendell, to retire and take his ease; whereas Frodo sings "with weary feet", hoping somehow to reach Mordor bearing the Ring, and to try to destroy it in the Cracks of Doom: diametrically opposed destinations and errands. He notes that Rivendell was the home of Elvish song, and cites Tolkien's statement that the song that the Hobbits hear in Rivendell, '' A Elbereth Gilthoniel'' invoking the semi-divine Varda, was a hymn suggestive of his own devout Catholicism. Shippey writes, too, that Tolkien had Bilbo write and sing the Song of Earendil in Rivendell, making use of multiple poetic devices – rhyme, internal half-rhyme, alliteration, alliterative assonance, and "a frequent if irregular variation of syntax" – to create a mysterious Elvish effect of "rich and continuous uncertainty, a pattern forever being glimpsed but never quite grasped." Rebecca Ankeny comments that Tolkien uses verse, too, to signal the horror of the Elves when Gandalf speaks the dark lord's rhyme of the Rings aloud, in the Black Speech, threatening the end of Rivendell. The Tolkien scholar Gergely Nagy notes that Tolkien wanted to present the complex set of writings of '' The Silmarillion'' as a seemingly-genuine collection of tales and myths within the frame of his fictional Middle-earth; he modified ''The Lord of the Rings'' to ascribe the documents to Bilbo, supposedly written in the years he spent in Rivendell, and preserved in the fictitious '' Red Book of Westmarch'', its name alluding to the '' Red Book of Hergest''. Burns writes that Rivendell, "the Last Homely House", offers a welcoming home, repeating the pattern set in both ''The Hobbit'' and ''The Lord of the Rings'' of "easy-going but tidy bachelor indulgence" from Bilbo's Bag End hobbit-hole onwards; despite Arwen, there is hardly anything "of the feminine".


Adaptations

In
Peter Jackson Sir Peter Robert Jackson (born 31 October 1961) is a New Zealand film director, screenwriter and producer. He is best known as the director, writer and producer of the ''Lord of the Rings'' trilogy (2001–2003) and the ''Hobbit'' trilogy ( ...
's 2001 film '' The Fellowship of the Ring'', Rivendell was represented by Kaitoke Regional Park, New Zealand, though the waterfalls were added with
computer-generated imagery Computer-generated imagery (CGI) is the use of computer graphics to create or contribute to images in art, printed media, video games, simulators, and visual effects in films, television programs, shorts, commercials, and videos. The images may ...
.
Brian Rosebury ''Tolkien: A Cultural Phenomenon'' is a 2003 book of literary criticism by Brian Rosebury about the English author and philologist J. R. R. Tolkien and his writings on his fictional world of Middle-earth, especially ''The Lord of the Rings''. A s ...
comments that Jackson presents the Elves as sophisticated, where Tolkien made them close to nature. All the same, he writes, the film Rivendell's "architecture and ornaments are dominated by natural motifs", suggesting "integration with nature, but at one remove", something that works well for the " Portmeirion-like idyll" of the portrayed Rivendell. Rosebury describes the design as " post-Ruskinian", as in pre-Raphaelite paintings, William Morris's
Arts and Crafts A handicraft, sometimes more precisely expressed as artisanal handicraft or handmade, is any of a wide variety of types of work where useful and decorative objects are made completely by one’s hand or by using only simple, non-automated re ...
designs, and
Art Nouveau Art Nouveau (; ) is an international style of art, architecture, and applied art, especially the decorative arts. The style is known by different names in different languages: in German, in Italian, in Catalan, and also known as the Modern ...
architectural details. These differ from Tolkien's own illustrations, but in a way, Rosebury suggests, that Tolkien would have liked as it matches his dislike of industrialised manufacture.


Legacy

In the period of counterculture in the Western world of the 1960s and 1970s, a commune called ''Maos Lyst'' (
Mao Mao Zedong pronounced ; also romanised traditionally as Mao Tse-tung. (26 December 1893 – 9 September 1976), also known as Chairman Mao, was a Chinese communist revolutionary who was the founder of the People's Republic of China (PRC), ...
's Delight) was founded on the island of Zealand, Denmark, in 1968, its inhabitants replacing their surnames with ''Kløvedal'', the Danish for Rivendell. Several of them later became well-known cultural personalities in the country. The Rivendell Winery operated from 1987 to 2008 in New York's Hudson River Valley. The Tolkien Ensemble set all the songs in ''The Lord of the Rings'' to music on four CDs between 1997 and 2005, each with "Rivendell" in its title. The Swedish classical composer Anna-Lena Laurin has written a work for two guitars entitled "Rivendell". The Canadian progressive rock band
Rush Rush(es) may refer to: Places United States * Rush, Colorado * Rush, Kentucky * Rush, New York * Rush City, Minnesota * Rush Creek (Kishwaukee River tributary), Illinois * Rush Creek (Marin County, California), a stream * Rush Creek (Mono Cou ...
memorialised the Elvish sanctuary in the song "Rivendell" on their 1975 studio album '' Fly by Night''. The song focuses on the tranquillity and seemingly endless time a weary traveller could find there, with lyrics such as "Elfin songs and endless nights / Sweet wine and soft relaxing lights / Time will never touch you / Here in this enchanted place".


References


Primary

::''This list identifies each item's location in Tolkien's writings.''


Secondary


Sources

* * * * * * * * * * * {{Middle-earth Middle-earth populated places Fictional valleys Middle-earth realms de:Regionen und Orte in Tolkiens Welt#Bruchtal lb:Länner a Stied aus Middle-earth#Rivendell