Q: What Was the Elves’ Town in the Hobbit?
ANSWER: Bilbo Baggins visits three communities of Elves in the course of The Hobbit. First, he visits Rivendell where he meets Elrond. Second, he sneaks into Thranduil’s halls to help Thorin and the other Dwarves. Third, he steals food from a small village of “raft-elves” in the forest after freeing the Dwarves from Thranduil’s dungeons.
J.R.R. Tolkien does not provide any information about how large the Elven communities are. The Elven-king is able to field an army of undetermined size, but at least one group of that army includes a thousand warriors. It would seem reasonable that the Wood-elves had more than just the two communities Tolkien describes in the story.
Rivendell does not seem to be large enough to be a “town” but perhaps it was Tolkien’s intention to suggest that there were other Elvish homesteads near Elrond’s “Last Homely House”. It is a seldom mentioned fact that Bilbo says, as he enters the valley, that “it smells like Elves”. Bilbo had apparently had dealings with Elves on previous occasions.
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