Editing Rivendell (section)

==Analysis==

=== Physical origins ===
[[File:1 lauterbrunnen valley 2012.jpg|thumb|upright=1.4|Tolkien based Rivendell on his 1911 visit to the [[Lauterbrunnen]]tal in Switzerland.<ref name="MacEacharan 2014"/>]]

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 (climbing)|glissade]] [of Bilbo and the Dwarves] down the [[scree|slithering stones]] into the pine woods ... is based on my adventures in Switzerland in 1911".<ref group=T>{{harvnb|Carpenter|2023|loc=#306 to [[Michael Tolkien]], 1967-8 }}</ref><ref name="MacEacharan 2014">{{cite web |last=MacEacheran |first=Mike |title=In Alpine villages, Hobbits lurk |date=24 May 2014 |publisher=[[BBC]] |url=http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20140523-in-alpine-villages-hobbits-lurk |access-date=18 August 2020}}</ref>

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.{{sfn|Burns|2005|pp=81–84}}

=== A place of sanctuary ===
{{further|Tolkien and the Celtic|Lothlórien#Analysis}}

[[File:15 They rode up to a stately palace.jpg|thumb|upright|Rivendell has been compared to the [[Celtic Otherworld]],{{sfn|Burns|2005|p=54}} here in a 1910 illustration by [[Stephen Reid (artist)|Stephen Reid]]]]

[[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.{{sfn|Dickerson|2013|pp=573–574}} 
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".<ref name="Ciabattari 2014"/>
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".{{sfn|Burns|2005|p=54}} There are multiple markers of the transition:

{{blockquote|To enter Rivendell is to leave, for a time, the uplands' bleak, mountainous, northerly terrain. First comes the steep descent ...; pines are replaced by beech and oak; the air grows warmer; the first of the elves greet them with laughter and song, and then comes the inevitable water crossing that divides the rest of Middle-earth from the inner core of every Elven realm.{{sfn|Burns|2005|p=61}}}}

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|the underground realm]] of the [[Tuatha Dé Danann]], whose chiefs each rule a burial mound.{{sfn|Burns|2005|p=66}}

=== Heroic quest's starting-point ===

{{further|Christianity in Middle-earth}}

The philologist and Tolkien scholar [[Tom Shippey]] remarks that Tolkien, a [[Christianity|Christian]], 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 of Jesus|Crucifixion]].{{sfn|Shippey|2005|p=227}}

The Tolkien scholar [[Verlyn Flieger]] writes that both Frodo and Aragorn receive their renewed [[Naming of weapons in Middle-earth|magic swords]] in Rivendell, [[Heroism in The Lord of the Rings#Magic sword|marking them out as heroes]] in the epic tradition of [[Sigurd]] and [[King Arthur|Arthur]], at the start of [[Quests in Middle-earth|their quest]].{{sfn|Flieger|2004|pp=122–145}}

=== Cultural allusions ===
{{further|Poetry in The Lord of the Rings#Glimpses of another world}}

Shippey contrasts the versions of the ''[[The Old Walking Song|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.{{sfn|Shippey|2005|p=213}} 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 (Middle-earth)|Varda]], was a [[hymn]] [[Christianity in Middle-earth|suggestive of his own devout Catholicism]].{{sfn|Shippey|2005|p=230}} Shippey writes, too, that Tolkien had Bilbo write and sing the Song of [[Earendil]] in Rivendell, making use of [[Poetry in The Lord of the Rings#Song of Eärendil|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."{{sfn|Shippey|2005|pp=218–219}} 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.<ref name="Ankeny 2005">{{cite journal |last=Ankeny |first=Rebecca |title=Poem as Sign in 'The Lord of the Rings' |journal=[[Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts]] |volume=16 |issue=2 (62) |year=2005 |pages=86–95 |jstor=43308763}}</ref>

The Tolkien scholar [[Gergely Nagy (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]]''.{{sfn|Nagy|2020|pp=107–118}}

Burns writes that Rivendell, "the Last Homely House",<ref name="Many Meetings" group=T/> 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".{{sfn|Burns|2005|pp=136–137}} Shippey states that Frodo has "to be dug out ... of no fewer than [[Frodo's five Homely Houses|five 'Homely Houses']]", of which Rivendell is the last.<ref>{{cite book |last=Shippey |first=Tom |author-link=Tom Shippey |title=[[J. R. R. Tolkien: Author of the Century]] |date=2001 |publisher=[[HarperCollins]] |isbn=978-0261-10401-3 |page=65}}</ref>