Middle Days

During the Elder Days of the First Age, the Elves lay at the heart of the history of Middle-earth, and Men had little part to play other than as allies or antagonists of the Firstborn. After the cataclysm at the end of the First Age, history entered a new phase, the Middle Days. In this time Men came into the ascendancy, especially the Men of Númenor, but the Elves remained a potent force. The end of the Second Age saw the culmination of this joint power in the Last Alliance of Elves and Men, a force capable of overcoming the Dark Lord Sauron.

After the time of the Last Alliance, Men became ever more powerful in Middle-earth and the Elves played a lesser, but still important, role. As the long years of the Third Age rolled on, more and more of the Elder Children of Ilúvatar passed into the West, and the end of that Age saw the Three Rings of the Elves lose their power, and their Keepers leave Middle-earth for Aman. With the end of the Third Age the Middle Days also came to an end, after a period of nearly six and a half millennia, and the Younger Days were held to have begun. The close of the Middle Days brought the time known to the Elves as the Fading Years, and began the period of the Dominion of Men.