The Feast of the Immortals

It is said that every 5000 years, the gods gather together for a great banquet. It is a feast of unsurpassed magnificence, made up of the offerings made to the gods since the last banquet 5000 years prior. Some believe that the spirits of notable figures from the last era are invited to partake in the feast. On the last day of the feast, the gods alone are said to dine on a special fruit, often identified as a citrus fruit like an orange or grapefruit. Beliefs regarding the effects of the fruit vary significantly, but most agree that this fruit is the source of the gods immortality. Without it, the gods would slowly and inevitably fade from the world, and never be heard from again.   The banquet is marked by the appearance of several dozen comets blazing across the sky, set into motion to entertain the gods for the duration of the feast. Nobody in living memory has seen this display first hand, but ancient records claim they glowed bright enough to be seen both night and day. Modern scholars have proposed that this could once have been a single large comet with a very long orbital cycle that broke up into several pieces, thus creating this brilliant display, but they can only speculate on this until the next Feast. Most historians agree that we are within a century of the next Feast, though the records over such a long timespan make precision dating impossible (and possibly useless, as some suggest the precise 5000 year cycle is an approximation, given similar precision would be impossible in any 5000 year span throughout history.)  

Creation of the Elves

One variant of the several creation myths for the elves tells that their longevity comes from distant ancestors who were fortunate enough to dine on the Fruit of Immortality. However, even in this category, details vary considerably - the ancestral elves may have been honoured guests of the gods, rewarded for their service with a taste of immortality, or they were servers at the ceremony and some had the audacity to eat the table scraps. Additionally, some believe these ancestral elves were humans, while others claim they were already elf-like in other ways, just much shorter lived.