"His house was perfect whether you liked food, or sleep, or work, or story-telling, or singing, or just sitting and thinking best, nor a pleasant mixture of them all. Evil things did not come into that valley." (The Hobbit, Chapter 3)
Rivendell means deeply cloven valley and is often refered to as the "Last Homely House West of the Mountains".
Rivendell is aan important location for the Rangers of the North as Elrond keeps several important relics of the kingdom here. The Rangers were fostered in Rivendell as children including Aragon whom Elrond regards as a foster son. During his time in Rivendell Aragorn met and fell in love Arwen. They were later married after he was crowned king of Gondor and Arnor.
As Saurons power grew his enemies formed the White Council. This council included Elrond and therefore the Council frequently met in Rivendell making it an important location leading up to and during the War of the Ring. After Bilbo's 111th birthday Bilbo retired to Rivendell to write his memoirs. He was soon joined by Frodo Baggins and his companions Samwise Gamgee, Pippin and Merry who journeyed to Rivendell to deliver the Ring safely from Sauron's agents. Others also arrived at Rivendell on seperate errands and at the Council of Elrond they learned that they were all linked to the fate of the Ring. The council decided that the Ring must be destroyed so the Fellowship of the Ring was formed and departe from Rivendell on the quest for Mount Doom.
The Fellowship of the Ring consisted of:
After the One Ring was destroyed Elrond's own ring lost its power and he left Rivendell and sailed to Valinor. It is not know when Rivendell was finally abandoned, but shortly before he died Aragorn said to Arwen that "none now walk" in the garden of Elrond.
The rest of the LOTR series is not far behind but as each cache is a stand alone they are being published separately.
A bookmark of all the caches available can be found to the right of the page.