[Kalimac]

Finwe and Aiwendil - it's a little ambiguous, but I was always under the impression that it was a fairly short journey. The beginning of "A Short Rest" goes;

They did not sing or tell stories that day, even though the weather improved; nor the next day, nor the next. They had begun to feel that danger was not far away on either side. They camped under the stars, and their horses had more to eat than they had; for there was plenty of grass, but there was not much in their bags, even with what they had got from the trolls. One morning they forded a river...

The morning that they ford the river is the same day that the arrive in Rivendell. When I was remembering the chapter, I remembered the "that day, the next day, and the next" progression, but I forgot about the "one morning" which of course could be anything from the fourth morning to the fortieth. So to be honest, it is open to question. It had always left me previously with the impression of "four or five days" especially since in the previous chapter Gandalf mentions meeting Elves from Rivendell who were "hurrying along for fear of the trolls" - it's implied that they're going back to Rivendell, and it seems odd for them to be "hurrying" when their destination is a full two weeks away, the way it is in FOTR. Surely if they were that far from home base, hurrying wouldn't really be so much of an issue as making sure that you're properly armed and cloaked.

There's one more thing: it's true that Aragorn et al had a sick Frodo who slowed things down considerably, and that must have factored into the fourteen or fifteen days it took them to get to Rivendell. But there are fifteen travellers in "The Hobbit" and the Dwarves don't seem like the types who move very fast - plus, traveling with a crowd will always, always be inherently slower than traveling with just a few people. Imagine mealtimes, if nothing else - those would be twice as long, what with people starting to eat at slightly different times and talking to each other and so forth. Also there's the food factor - Tolkien says that they didn't get much from the trolls, and even a lot divided between fifteen is going to dry up pretty quickly. It sounds like they were a bit short when they reached Rivendell, but certainly not eating crusts or reduced to the condition that they were in Mirkwood. Those factors combined make me think that they were out there closer to five days than fifteen.

So that's all - I admit, it's grossly speculative, but it seems worth thinking about. Make of it what you will [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img].