Rivendell Explained: Imladris, the Last Homely House of Elrond

Quick Answer: Rivendell is the hidden valley of Elrond Half-elven, set in a deep cleft on the western side of the Misty Mountains. Its Sindarin name is Imladris, "Deep Dale of the Cleft". Elrond founded it in Second Age 1697, when Sauron laid Eregion waste. Tolkien calls it the Last Homely House east of the Sea: Bilbo rests there in The Hobbit, Frodo is healed there, and the Council of Elrond sends out the Fellowship of the Ring from its halls. Its Elves speak Sindarin.

There are grander Elvish places in Tolkien's world. Gondolin had its white walls, Doriath its girdle of enchantment, Valinor its light. But for most readers, Rivendell is the first Elvish place they ever enter, and the one they would most like to stay in. It is a house rather than a kingdom: a place of food, songs, maps, old books, beds and a fire that never goes out. The hobbits who arrive there are always tired, frightened or hurt, and they always leave rested.

This guide follows Rivendell through the Ages, explains its Elvish name, sets out who lived there, and separates what Tolkien wrote from what the films added. If you want the language that was spoken there in more depth, our companion piece on the Elvish spoken in Rivendell goes line by line.

What Rivendell Is

Rivendell is a hidden valley in the wild lands east of the Shire and west of the Misty Mountains. It lies between the Hoarwell and the Loudwater, in country that by the late Third Age was mostly empty of mortal settlement. You cannot see it until you are almost on top of it. In The Hobbit (chapter 3, "A Short Rest") Bilbo and the dwarves wander across moorland, unable to find the path, until Gandalf leads them to the edge of a sudden steep valley with a river running far below.

It is not a city and it is not walled. Its strength is concealment and the power of its lord. Elrond holds Vilya, the Ring of Air, mightiest of the Three Rings of the Elves; The Return of the King names it openly only at the very end ("The Grey Havens"), but its presence explains why the valley is safe in a dangerous age. When the Black Riders pursue Frodo in 1418 of the Shire Reckoning, they can come as far as the Ford of Bruinen and no further.

Tolkien's own name for it in the books is the Last Homely House east of the Sea. "Homely" is meant in the older English sense: comfortable, welcoming, like home. In The Hobbit the narrator says that it was a perfect house whether you liked food, or sleep, or work, or story-telling, or singing, or just sitting and thinking best. That catalogue is the whole character of the place.

The Name: Rivendell and Imladris

The two names say the same thing in two languages.

Imladris is Sindarin. Our vocabulary data glosses it as "Rivendell, (lit.) Deep Dale of the Cleft" (attested in The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion and The Road Goes Ever On). The first part is imlad, a valley or dale, especially a deep narrow one. The second part belongs with the Quenya word rissë, "cleft, ravine". Put together, Imladris is a valley that sits inside a split in the land.

Rivendell is Tolkien's English translation of that idea, not an English word he found. A dell is a small wooded valley, and riven is the old past participle of rive, "to tear apart". A riven dell is a valley in a torn place. Tolkien used this technique all through The Lord of the Rings: the hobbits' speech is "translated" into English, so place names that Men or hobbits would use appear in English forms, while the Elvish forms appear when Elves speak.

The other name you meet is Karningul, the form in the Westron, or Common Speech, given in Appendix F as the "real" name behind the English Rivendell. You will rarely need it, but it shows how carefully Tolkien layered his languages.

For the meaning of the name of the valley's lord, see Elrond Name Meaning: in short, Elrond is "star-dome", from el "star" and rond "vaulted roof".

Rivendell Through the Ages

The Second Age: a refuge from the fall of Eregion

Rivendell is a Second Age foundation, which surprises readers who assume it is ancient. Appendix B of The Lord of the Rings ("The Tale of Years") gives the dates. In the 1600s Sauron forged the One Ring, and the Elves of Eregion, who had made the Rings of Power with him, realised they had been deceived. War followed. In 1697 Eregion was laid waste and Celebrimbor died. In the same year, the Tale of Years says, Elrond went with the remnant of the Noldor of Eregion and founded the refuge of Imladris.

So Rivendell begins as a camp of survivors that became a stronghold. Sauron's armies overran much of Eriador in the following years, but Imladris held. In 1700 a great fleet from Númenor, sent by the king Tar-Minastir, came to Lindon and helped drive Sauron back. Elrond remained in the valley thereafter, as Gil-galad's lieutenant in the east of Eriador.

For the story of the maker of the Rings and the fall of his city, see our series post on Celebrimbor and the Rings of Power.

The Third Age: a house against the shadow of Angmar

In the Third Age the kingdom of Arnor divided and its northern successor states fell, one by one, to the Witch-king of Angmar. Rivendell was one of the few lasting powers in Eriador through those centuries. Appendix A tells how Elves from Rivendell and Lindon, with Men from Gondor, defeated Angmar at the Battle of Fornost in Third Age 1975; Glorfindel of Rivendell rode against the Witch-king and spoke the famous prophecy that he would not fall by the hand of man.

After the last king of Arnor perished, his heirs, the Chieftains of the Dúnedain, kept a special bond with Elrond. Appendix A says that their sons were fostered in Rivendell, and the heirlooms of their house, including the shards of Narsil, were kept there. This is why Aragorn grows up in Elrond's house. His father Arathorn was killed when he was two, and his mother Gilraen brought him to Rivendell, where he was called Estel, "hope", and his true name and lineage were hidden from him until he came of age.

It is in Rivendell, too, that Aragorn first sees Arwen walking among the birches and falls in love with her (Appendix A, "The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen"). For her name and title, see Arwen Name Meaning.

The Hobbit: a short rest

In The Hobbit Rivendell is a pause between two dangers, after the trolls and before the goblins of the Misty Mountains. Chapter 3, "A Short Rest", introduces the Elves in the trees singing teasing songs at the dwarves, and Elrond himself, described as noble as an elf-lord, strong as a warrior, wise as a wizard and kind as summer.

Elrond does two important things. He identifies the swords taken from the trolls' hoard as blades of Gondolin, Orcrist and Glamdring. And, holding Thrór's map up to the light of a crescent moon on the right night, he finds moon-letters that the dwarves had never seen, the clue to the secret door in the Lonely Mountain. Then the company leaves, on Midsummer morning, into the mountains.

Bilbo returns at the end of the book, on his way home, and the visit is short and happy. That small detail matters later: it is why Bilbo eventually chooses Rivendell for his retirement.

The Lord of the Rings: the Council of Elrond

Rivendell is the hinge of The Fellowship of the Ring. The hobbits flee there from the Shire with the Black Riders behind them. At Weathertop Frodo is stabbed with a Morgul-knife, and the last chapter of Book I, "Flight to the Ford", is a race to reach the Ford of Bruinen, the Loudwater, before the wound takes him.

In the book it is Glorfindel who finds the party on the road and sets Frodo on his white horse. At the ford the Riders plunge after him, and the river rises in a flood that sweeps them away. Gandalf later explains that the river was under Elrond's command and that he himself added a touch of his own, so that the waves took the shape of white horses with riders.

Book II opens with Frodo waking in Elrond's house ("Many Meetings"). Elrond has removed a sliver of the blade that was working towards his heart. Frodo meets Bilbo again, sees Arwen for the first time at the feast, and spends an evening in the Hall of Fire, where Elves listen to songs and Bilbo performs his long poem about Eärendil.

The next chapter, "The Council of Elrond", is one of the longest in the book and one of its great set pieces. Elrond calls together Elves, Dwarves, Men, a wizard and hobbits. They hear the history of the Ring, the treason of Saruman, Gollum's escape and Boromir's dream. The council considers and rejects every alternative, from sending the Ring to Tom Bombadil to hiding it, before Frodo says he will take it, though he does not know the way. The Fellowship of Nine is chosen there.

The company spends about two months in Rivendell while scouts search the land. Bilbo gives Frodo his mithril coat and his sword Sting, and the Fellowship sets out on 25 December, at dusk ("The Ring Goes South").

The end of the Third Age

When the Ring is destroyed, the hobbits pass through Rivendell again on the way home ("Many Partings"), and find Bilbo very old and sleepy. Two years later Bilbo and Elrond ride to the Grey Havens with Frodo, and Elrond leaves Middle-earth. Appendix A says Elrond's sons stayed on in Rivendell for a while after him, and Celeborn later went to live there too. Arwen did not go; she had chosen a mortal life with Aragorn.

Our series post on the Grey Havens follows that last journey.

Who Lived in Rivendell

• Elrond Half-elven, lord of Imladris, son of Eärendil and Elwing, master of lore and healing. See Elrond Explained.
• Arwen Undómiel, his daughter.
• Elladan and Elrohir, his twin sons, who rode often with the Rangers. Appendix A says they hunted orcs after their mother Celebrían was captured and tormented in the Misty Mountains.
• Glorfindel, a mighty Elf-lord who rescues Frodo on the road.
• Erestor, Elrond's counsellor, who speaks at the Council.
• Lindir, an Elf of the household named in "Many Meetings", who talks with Bilbo after his song of Eärendil.
• Bilbo Baggins, who retires there after his eleventy-first birthday.
• Aragorn, raised there as Estel.

The Language of Rivendell

The Elves of Rivendell are mostly Noldor in origin, the Elves who came back from Valinor. But in Middle-earth the Noldor had long since taken up the language of the Grey-elves, so the everyday speech of Imladris is Sindarin. Quenya was preserved there, as across the Elvish world, as a language of lore and ceremony, and Elrond's house was the great keeping-place of old books and maps in the north.

When Frodo hears singing in the Hall of Fire, he understands little of the words, but the sound alone takes hold of him. A Sindarin hymn to Elbereth appears in the chapter "Many Meetings"; it is the same invocation Frodo later cries at Weathertop and Sam uses in Cirith Ungol. Our article on Rivendell's Elvish gives the language in detail, and Elvish Greeting Etiquette in Rivendell covers how guests were welcomed.

A few Sindarin words tied to the valley, all from our attested vocabulary list:

If you would like to see any of these in Elvish script, type them into our Tengwar name generator.

Rivendell in the Films and in The Rings of Power

This section deals with screen adaptations, which differ from Tolkien's books.

Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings (2001). The film's Rivendell, built around waterfalls and autumn colour, is one of the most loved designs in the trilogy, and its look owes much to the illustrator Alan Lee. The largest change is the rescue at the ford. In the film Arwen finds Frodo, carries him on her horse and calls up the river herself with a spell in film Sindarin (David Salo). In the book Glorfindel carries Frodo, and the flood is Elrond's work. The Council is also much shorter on screen, and it ends with a quarrel the book does not have, with characters shouting over the Ring until Frodo speaks.

The films also add scenes between Elrond and Aragorn and between Elrond and Arwen that are drawn from the Appendices rather than the main text, such as Elrond urging Arwen to leave Middle-earth and Elrond bringing the reforged sword to Aragorn at Dunharrow. In the book the sword is reforged in Rivendell before the Fellowship leaves.

The Hobbit films (2012–2014). An Unexpected Journey keeps Elrond reading the moon-letters, but adds a meeting of the White Council in Rivendell, with Gandalf, Elrond, Galadriel and Saruman discussing the Necromancer. The book of The Hobbit has no such scene there; the White Council is mentioned in The Lord of the Rings and its appendices, not staged in Elrond's house.

The Rings of Power (Amazon). The series is set in the Second Age and gives Elrond a large role as a young diplomat. It is working towards the founding of Imladris after Eregion's fall, but it compresses and rearranges Tolkien's timeline, and its scenes, dialogue and many characters are the show's own invention. Treat its version as a separate story.

Visiting Rivendell in Spirit

Rivendell's appeal is that it promises rest without ending the story. Frodo, on his first night there, feels that he could stay forever; then he volunteers to leave. Tolkien built the place so that both feelings are true. If you want to spend more time in that world, the languages are the most direct way in. Our free Elvish course teaches Sindarin and Quenya from the first sounds, and the English to Elvish translator will show you how a phrase of your own might look in the speech of Elrond's house.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why is Rivendell called the Last Homely House? Because it is the last friendly house travelling east before the Misty Mountains and the wild lands beyond. "Homely" means welcoming and comfortable, and the full phrase in the books is the Last Homely House east of the Sea.

Is Rivendell older than Lothlórien? Rivendell is a Second Age foundation, 1697. Lothlórien's Silvan Elves lived in that wood much earlier, though its history as Galadriel's realm is told differently in different texts. See our Lothlórien guide.

What ring does Elrond have? Vilya, the Ring of Air, mightiest of the Three. He received it from Gil-galad, and it is one reason the valley stays safe.

Who saved Frodo at the ford in the book? Glorfindel set Frodo on his horse, and the flood that swept away the Riders came at Elrond's command, with Gandalf adding the shapes of horses.

People Also Ask

What is Rivendell in Lord of the Rings? Rivendell is the hidden valley home of Elrond Half-elven in the foothills of the Misty Mountains, called the Last Homely House east of the Sea. Bilbo rests there in The Hobbit, and in The Lord of the Rings Frodo recovers there and the Fellowship is formed at the Council of Elrond.

What does Imladris mean? Imladris is the Sindarin name of Rivendell and means "Deep Dale of the Cleft": imlad is a deep valley, and the second element is related to the word for a cleft. Rivendell is Tolkien's English rendering of the same idea.

When was Rivendell founded? Elrond founded Imladris in Second Age 1697, the year Eregion was laid waste, as a refuge for the surviving Elves of that land.

What language is spoken in Rivendell? Sindarin is the everyday tongue. Quenya was kept as a language of lore and ceremony, and the Common Speech was used with mortal guests such as hobbits.

Related Reading

• Elves of Middle-earth: Kindreds, Immortality and Languages Explained
• Elrond Name Meaning: "Star-Dome", the Vault of Stars
• Elrond Explained: The Half-elven Lord of Rivendell
• Lothlórien Explained: The Golden Wood of Galadriel and Celeborn
• The Grey Havens Explained: Mithlond, Círdan and the Ships to the West
• Celebrimbor and the Rings of Power: The Smith Who Made the Three
• Elrond's Elvish: The Language of the Lord of Rivendell
• Middle-earth Place Names Explained: The Elvish Meaning Behind Every Location