Rivendell



Rivendell (Sindarin: Imladris) is an Elven outpost in Middle-earth, a fictional realm created by J. R. R. Tolkien. It is also referred to as 'The Last Homely House East of the Sea,' a reference to Valinor, which is west of the sea. It is established by Elrond in the Second Age of Middle-earth (four or five thousand years before the events of The Lord of the Rings). Besides Elrond himself, notable Elves who live there include Arwen and Glorfindel.

In The Hobbit, Bilbo Baggins stopped off at Rivendell with the dwarves on the way to the Lonely Mountain and also on the way back to the Shire with Gandalf.

In The Lord of the Rings, Frodo Baggins and his Hobbit companions journey to Rivendell, where they meet with Bilbo, who had retired there after his "Long-expected Party". Several other Elves, Dwarves and Men also arrive at Rivendell on separate errands; at the Council of Elrond they learn that all of their errands are related to the fate of the One Ring, and they must decide what to do about it. In the end it is the Hobbits who influence the decision.

Rivendell is located at the edge of a narrow gorge of the river Bruinen (one of the main approaches to Rivendell comes from a nearby ford of Bruinen), but well hidden in the moorlands and foothills of the Hithaeglir or the Misty Mountains.

The Sindarin name for Rivendell (which is a translation thereof) is Imladris, meaning "deep valley of the cleft".

Related Topic: Rivendell Bicycle Works, located in Walnut Creek, California, designs and constructs custom, hand-built, lugged steel bicycle frames. Grant Petersen, who&mdash;while in charge of bicycle manufacturing at Bridgestone&mdash;was responsible for the development of the famous Bridgestone XO-series, founded Rivendell in 1994. Among their offerings are a single-speed/fixed-gear bicycle frame by the name of Quickbeam and a line of bicycle bags by the name of Baggins (Both of these names also refer to characters from the The Lord of the Rings).