"No one, not even the wisest and most venerable elven sage, can say with assurance when and from whence the first elves came to Toril. But tales are told of a time long past, when elves fled by the thousands from war-torn Faerie, that magical land that exists in the unseen shadows of a thousand worlds.
The songs and stories that tell of those times are as numerous as the stars. No one now living could give a history that would sate those sages who search the ancient lore as a lover studies his beloved's face, or as dreamers who gaze up into the night sky and wonder.
But sometimes a pattern emerges from the telling of small tales, much as the individual bits of tile or stone become a mosaic, or a thousand bright threads interweave to form a tapestry."