Bill, I am intrigued as to where the note that says it was thirty miles from. The Ford to Rivendell.? It is only a couple in the Journeys of Frodo so is it from HoME?

Yes, but they couldn't have got that far before the aid came. If there were still thirty miles to go, the Elves that met them must have met them pretty soon and had fairly efficient transport. I'm not sure what time of day the flight to the Ford happened, but Frodo was brought to Rivendell on the night of that day, I think it says. A thirty-mile canter, perhaps?

I too had always had the impression that it was only a couple of miles or so. However, the Tale of Years says that, on the way back, they leave Rivendell on 5th October and cross the Ford of Bruinen on the 6th.

It's actually from one of a whole series of time-distance lists Tolkien made (I would guess) while working on "The Hunt For the Ring;" at any rate some of the group are concerned with distances from the Fords of Isen to Sarn Ford etc. There's also some fascinating stuff on Hobbit measurements, which (unsurprisingly) are just as anatomical and impractical as RW Imperial measures. None of it published, at least not yet.

Gandalf told Frodo that the whole of the valley was under Elrond's command. It would make sense for a wide area (and a Ford 30 miles away) to be under his control; Galadriel protects Lothlorien with the aid of Nenya, and Vilya was the mightiest of the Three.

Thanks. I can forgive myself for not knowing then! :cool: I must admit I didn't think the Strachey map quite tallied. With the impression you get from the Hobbit even allowing that Gandalf might not be as familiar as Glorfindel and Aragorn with the route.

When it's not Narya...:p

The sprint to the Ford happened "in late afternoon" -say 5 o'clock in October. Given Frodo's condition, I wouldn't think thay would have moved him with anything rougher than a horse-litter, or if necessary on a horse's back at a walk.... 5-6 mph. That would make their arrival circa 10-11 pm, which would certainly count as "that night".

Considering the account of Bilbo of his arrival at Rivendell in The Hobbit, a distance of many miles from the Ford to the Last Homely House seems more than reasonable.

They crossed the Ford in the morning, and didn't arrive at the valley until dusk. And with Gandalf leading the way, too! Then again, maybe he was just toying with the Dwarves and knew the way all along. :D

I realize the particulars of Eriador geography weren't as clear-cut in Tolkien's mind when he wrote TH, but still...

Mith, do you mean that Narya is referred to in another source as the mightiest of the Three?

Thanks for the clarifications, all - I have often wondered how long the rest of the journey would have taken, and how they would have got there. Presumably the elves rode to meet them with enough horses for the others to ride as well.

I've always assumed that Imladris was a known haven of Elvendom in Minas Anor. Gandalf went to Minas Tirith to research The Ring, when Isildur took it. Valandil, Isildur's youngest son was reared in Imladris. It wasn't that secret a secret locale. Just difficult to invade.

Sauron knew where Imladris was located. This was revealed to me, only recently, as I waded through materials about Celeborn and Galadriel (UT). During the War of Elves and Sauron, Sauron had Elrond contained, for a short while, in Imladris. 1695, SA, the House of the Mirdain was sacked. 1700, Gil Galad gets Numenorean help. He was holed up in Lindon, Gulf of Lhun and Numenorean help came just in time. Sauron had Imladris isolated sometime in that intervening five years.

Boromir had that dream, once, that Faramir had many times "seek for the sword that was broken, in Imladris it dwells). It makes sense that Boromir and his dad went through the archives and found materials about Elrond, who helped Isildur in the Last Alliance)....

Except that Denethor plainly didn't know: "All he could tell me was that Imladris was the name of a far northern dell where Elrond and Half-elven dwelt."

Minas Tirith's archives would have been little use regarding Tar-Minastir's expeditionary force and the First War of the Rings (4500 years before), since all of Numenor's records were lost in the Downfall.

Not quite true
 

That's not quite true, William. There are hints in the Akallabêth and 'A Description of the Island of Númenor' in Unfinished Tales that some records were saved by the Faithful. Also, perhaps some of the Faithful who survived might have noted down what they themselves remembered, or what they remember other people talking about, from the records.

I would certainly agree that the vast majority of records were lost in the Downfall, and that there were large gaps in the knowledge of those who survived.

Information survived they just could not bring themselves to look at it.

Ignoring that there is the information Isildur may have left behind. His wife and son were still staying in Rivendell. Denethor had access to the library, but it does not mean he had read everything in it.

Sure. The library would have 3200 years of records! Think the U.S. National Archives multiplied by 15!
Denethor claimed (to Gandalf) to know more of the city's lore than anyone else - but that doesn't mean he was an expert on everything that was there. Could ANYONE really know everything there?

Gandalf suspected the scroll of Isuldur (about the ring) had not been ead by any but him and Saruman since the Kings failed - 1200 years before. How likely is it that anyone would have felt the need to search out the location of Rivendell over the previous Mellenium?

Besides, how would you describe it's location? "Go to the Ford of Bruinen and it's within 30 miles - IF you can find the path"??? It's not so easy - especially in a land with many canyons and ravines. Assume you can't just follow the Bruinen upstream - the canyon is likely impassible that way. Certainly, no one would have had the Lat/Long coordinates - and how would a traveler use such in that time even if he had it? GPS? Forget it. ;)

Besides, even 5/600 yars earlier, in the dire straights of the Balchoth crisis, Cirion apparently never considered seeking help from the Elves (his Riders bypassed Lorien without even a wave and there is no indication he thought to ask Rivendell for help) suggesting they weren't even on the radar screen. That just suggests that, for multi-hundreds of years (at least0 n oone would have been searching the archives for the location of Rivendell.

Denethor was enough of a lore-master to know it existed, but it seems likely even he really didn't know it's precise location (just a "far northern dell") - making Boromir's travel more of a quest, than a simple journey --- and all the more impressive for that.

I'd say that many were lost, but they did salvage some records and heirlooms, as well as artifacts like the Seeing Stones and the Tree. This can be inferred from the following passage about the Faithful taking 9 ships to M-E holding things of power and beauty;

"vessels and jewels, and scrolls of lore written in scarlet and black. And Seven Stones they had, the gift of the Eldar; but in the ship of Isildur was guarded the young tree, the scion of Nimloth the Fair." [Sil., Akallabêth, p. 342]

Faramir, who would be Steward, was learned in the lore of Men, as can be seen in his discussion with Frodo and Sam [RotK, bk. 4, ch. 5, p. 338-340] However, he does admit to Frodo and Sam, "I am not learned in Elven-lore." [p. 340]

Rivendell had scouts, to be sure, everyone. A guy like Boromir, so obviously, 'minas-tirith-ish' up north would have attracted attention enough, don't you think?

That, and add to the materials that The Last Alliance was not exactly the war that everyone forgot, which I add to my post upstream about Valandil reared in Imladris. Then, Second Age materials aside (5000 years is a long time, tho we have records that old from Egypt), Elendil's founding efforts, his ties to Fornost, Evendim, Amon Sul, and the three principalities of Arnor, the many-hundreds-of-year war with The Witch King, and Elrond's assistance in that war (entre Glorfindel's prophetic words) then Arvedui's ties to Gondor during a time, well into TA, where traffic flowed up the Greenway on a road maintained by the King -- this cluster of items would leave me inclined to think that Boromir had some kind of background knowledge about Rivendell's location. Where the Greenway meets the Great East Road, I'd have imagined was a point well known to Gondor....