Bëor was famous as the leader of the first Men to enter Beleriand, and also as the first to encounter the Elves. He crossed the Blue Mountains with a group of followers, whose descendants would be known as the People of Bëor. Bëor himself entered the service of the Elf-lord Finrod Felagund, and his people in general had a great friendship with the Elves, to the extent that they soon abandoned their own language and adopted the Sindarin tongue in its place.

In the later First Age, many great heroes sprang from the House of Bëor. The most famous was undoubtedly Beren son of Barahir, who recovered a Silmaril from Morgoth's Iron Crown. In the Second Age, with the other Edain, the Bëorians were granted the island of Númenor to dwell on, and we're told that the People of Bëor were to be found especially in the northwestern regions of that land.