In the fiction of
J. R. R. Tolkien, the
First Age, or
First Age of the Children of Ilúvatar is the heroic period in which most of Tolkien's early legends are set. Versions of these stories were later published in
The Silmarillion, and tales from this period lend a deep sense of time and history to the later period in which the action of
The Lord of the Rings takes place.