‘As I have often told you,’ Haloch said, ‘our Lore began a long time before the creation of the Written Word. Before Knowledge. It began in the days of Memory and the Rhyming Lists.
‘This early lore was a living thing, as inseparable from us as the air we breath, and adapted and changed as did all other living things; it was known to all, and was more a thing of instinct than of “knowing.”
‘Of all creatures in the known world, we Elves were the most adaptable. The most complex. As a consequence, we became more analytical of our own talents, at first merely out of curiosity; then because a new desire grew upon our ancestors as they realised it was possible to improve upon their lot in life, something that had never occurred to anyone before. Out of this desire came Knowledge, and the realization that Knowledge itself was a fragile thing; a lifetime of reflection and thought was lost whenever the wisest and oldest inevitably died. As well, they discovered that although Knowledge had a way of accumulating, no one individual could retain it all.
‘At a later point, though still in the remote past, we Elves began using simple runes carved in wood and stone to mark boundaries and distances, to point out locations and count livestock, to keep track of trade, and to mark the seasons for planting and harvest.