Rivendell ( ) 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 begins.
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 is 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 went hiking in 1911.
Etymology
Rivendell is a direct translation or
calque into English of the
Sindarin Imladris, both meaning "deep valley". The name Rivendell is formed by two English elements: "riven" (split, cloven) and "dell" (valley). Imladris was 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 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.][ 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.]
Analysis
Physical origins
The Rivendell valley is based upon the valley of Lauterbrunnen in Switzerland, where Tolkien had gone hiking. Tolkien stated directly that "From Rivendell to the other side of the Misty Mountains, the journey ... including the glissade of down the scree 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, in the J. R. R. Tolkien Encyclopedia, 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 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 Otherworld 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 Christianity, was extremely careful with dates and timelines, but that hardly any readers notice that the Fellowship sets out from Rivendell on its quest 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 King 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". Shippey states that Frodo has "to be dug out ... of no fewer than five 'Homely Houses'", of which Rivendell is the last.]
Adaptations
In Peter Jackson's 2001 film , Rivendell was represented by Kaitoke Regional Park, New Zealand, though the waterfalls were added with computer-generated imagery.
Legacy
In the period of counterculture in the Western world of the 1960s and 1970s, a commune called Maos Lyst (Mao Zedong'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.
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