by Aérienne Perennem
Introduction
The First Age was lived in the Second World.
The Second Age spans an uncertain number of centuries in the land called Atlantis.
The third age is marked by the arrival of the elvic folk on the shores of Europa, after the catastrophic destruction of Atlantis and the Wanderjahren that followed.
Such, in the briefest possible form, are the Elvic Ages. Accounts of the second one–Atlantis and the Sea Years–are all but unknown and unknowable. They are the stuff of legends and so have attracted a thousand fictions for every fact. We shall leave that age to the fables and the fabulists, at their campfires, their inns, and (let us be frank!) at their lecterns.
The first elvic age we leave to a different set of writers: to the scholars and researchers who, in the wake of recent discoveries, are presently engaged in the vast and noble work of exploration of the so-called Second World. There, in dim caverns and sunless seas, they are attempting to bring to light an entire civilization. Those who inhabit that world are not friendly, still less are they forthcoming, but by fragments a picture is being built. This essay cannot address that picture, for it is still hardly more than a sketch. A future generation will have the honor of completing it.
Therefore and perforce, it is to the third age this essay is confined. This might, seen from a distance, seem to be but a third of the elvic story, but distance can distort proportion. The third age is by far the greatest, in depth if not extent. Only with the third age do we learn of elvic customs and manners, of their many societies, and of their participation in the affairs of other folk. Only from the time of their arrival on our western shores can we speak of their mysterious magics, their beliefs and superstitions, or indeed of their very appearance.
Of these and other matters this essay is concerned. No one writer has thus far undertaken such a comprehensive work, even for Europa still less for the rest of the world. It is a work of ambition and persistence, and the author carries the same expectation of her readers. For convenience of reference only, the work is divided into sections. The table following lets the reader enter the varied rooms via various doors.
Politics
Religion
Magic