Guests

		The Guests (the race of Men)
		Wild Men	Drúedain	Hobbits
Edain	Middle Peoples	Easterlings	Haradrim
Númenóreans	Northmen
Dúnedain	Northmen

The immortal Elves had lived in the world for many thousands of years when they first encountered Men. This new people had awoken in the distant East as the Sun first rose into the sky, and some of these Men journeyed westward across Middle-earth to find their way into Beleriand. In the years after their arrival, the ageless Elves were astonished and dismayed as they watched their new friends and allies weaken with the passing years, and eventually die.

The Elves did not age or suffer from sickness, and had no notion of death (even those slain in battle would return in the West). They were, therefore, bound to the life of Arda, and remained part of the world throughout its existence. The strange Gift of Men, however, was their fate of death, through which they would depart from the world after a span of years and pass beyond it, to an unknown destination. The Elves therefore called Men the 'Guests' - among many other names - as they watched the short lives of Men pass fleetingly before they vanished from the world, and their spirits moved on to pursue their mysterious fate.