I'd like to begin our episode today with words from lonely mad man Septimus Signis, who writes in his books titled Ruminations on the Elder Scrolls, quote, Imagine living beneath the waves with a strong sighted blessing of most excellent fabric. Holding the fabric over your gills, you would begin to breathe, drink, its warp, and weft. Though the plant matter fibers imbue your soul, the wretched plankton would pollute the cloth until it stank to heavens of prophecy. This is one manner in which the scrolls first came to pass, but are we the sea, or the breather, or the fabric, or are we the breath itself?
Can we flow through the scrolls as knowledge flows through, being the water, or are we the stuck morass of sea filth that gathers on the edge, end quote. It's the Elder Lore podcast, and today we are talking about the Elder Scrolls. Effects about the fabled Elder Scrolls are few and hard to find. There is very little understood about them at the moment, and indeed, perhaps they are unknowable.
The dragons call them Kelle, and some call them Adric Prophecies, though this last name is not technically accurate, as the scrolls are not necessarily prophecies. We do not know how many of them there are, not because they are overly abundant, but because according to Quintus Nerevelus, former Imperial librarian and member of the Cult of the Ancestor Moth, the scrolls, quote, do not exist in countable form, end quote. One might say that the scrolls simultaneously exist and do not exist, that they are fragments of pure creation from outside of time. It may be erroneous to say that they have the ability to prophecy because they exist outside of time, in other words, they are not technically looking into the future or looking into the past.
Time is not recorded in linear form on the Elder Scrolls, they see all moments at all times. With time and scholarship, mortals can learn to read and interpret the Elder Scrolls, but the information they divulge is never absolute. Those who do dedicate themselves to the scrolls do so at a price however. With each reading, the reader trades their worldly eyesight for greater understanding of the vision of the scrolls.
By the time they are completely blind, you can see far more of the scope of the Elder Scrolls than some of the younger readers. By time honored tradition, only the members of the Cult of the Ancestor Moth are allowed to read the scrolls. Younger members of the Cult care for the older members, as younger members are still in their years of study and practice, and older members have mostly lost their eyesight. Stretching back into antiquity before the Cult or the Order as it was originally known, the Syro-Nords had a tradition of making and trading the so-called Ancestor Silks.
These shawls were made from gently woven silks of the Gypsy Moth and inscribed with the genealogy of their buyers. Supposedly, the songs and hymns of their ancestors were gathered and woven into the fabric during the elaborate Silk Gathering ritual. Those songs could later be heard when the silks were rustled and the fabric rubbed up against itself. This became sacred custom, specifically for the Nimanese people of Cyro-Dil, and the Order of the Ancestor Moth was born.
This time went on, the most senior members of the order were able to bypass the ritual of gathering the silks and were able to wear the moths themselves. They would travel to an ancestor glade where they would find the Canticle trees. Using a traditional ancestor moth, Duranife, they would harvest some of the bark from the canticle tree, ground it up, and apply the mixture to their clothing. This would attract the Ancestor moths to them, and they would maintain contact with the moths by chanting inaudible mantras, and would walk around, garbed, in living moths.
The significance of the ancestor moths themselves is that, according to tradition, the spirits of our ancestors are reborn in the moths. It is through this connection with the ancestral tradition and spirituality that a connection is made with the nature of the Elder Scrolls. To quote a rare book titled, Pension of the Ancestor Moths, a depth of our order are gifted with prescient powers. The wisdom of the ancestors can sing the future into the present.
For this reason, our order and our order alone has been given the privilege to interpret the Eldish Scrolls. These writings exceed even the gods, both Edra and Deidra. This book, of which there is only one copy at the Temple of the Ancestor Moths in the game of oblivion, outlines what becomes of the elder members of the cult who have gone blind and can no longer read the scrolls. Here is another excerpt to quote.
This monastery is dedicated to the service of these noble members of our order. They now live out their lives with the ancestor moths that they so love. Their underground domains are well suited to the moths. They raise and nurture the fragile creatures, singing to them constantly.
They harvest the silk and spin it into bolts of cloth. They weave the cloth, embroidering it with the genealogies and histories of the ancestors that spun the silk. This is their new life. As they tend the ancestor moths, so we tend the blind moths.
While they toil in dark, we serve in the light. They need food and water and we provide. They need tools and furniture we provide. They need secrecy and anonymity.
We provide. They need purveyors to sell the fruits of their labors. We provide. The scholar named Justinius Polonius has studied the effects of reading the elder scrolls at various levels of research and scholarship.
It is recorded in his book titled Effects of the Elder Scrolls that uneducated readers suffer from no adverse effects upon reading the scroll, but nor do they understand any of them. The scrolls appear at first to have odd lettering and symbols, but some have been heard saying that they see allusions to constellations and astronomy within the scrolls. Those who know a little of the elder scrolls but lack the proficiency of long practice are immediately struck blind forever after. Following these two categories, which Justinius refers to as the nafes and the unguarded intellects accordingly, are the two categories which the monks of the ancestor moths fall into.
First, there is the mediated understanding where most of the monks fall, and finally illuminated understanding, which is achieved just before the monks are permanently stricken blind on the day of their so-called penultimate reading. Most of the known elder scrolls used to be stored within the imperial palace in the imperial city, in the, you guessed it, Imperial Library, sometimes referred to as the Elder Library or the Hall of Records. Following the theft of one of the scrolls during the chaos of the Oblivion Crisis, however, attempts at taking inventory of the scrolls proved fruitless, amounts and placements of the scrolls seemingly fluctuated with no discernible pattern. Finally, in 175 of the 4th era, the scrolls disappear entirely from the library.
This is one year after the Aldimer take the imperial city, and in the same year that the city is retaken by the forces of Titus Mied II. There have been a number of elder scrolls that have been obtainable in various elder scrolls games. More recently, there are two that can be acquired in the game Skyrim and another added as part of the Dawn Guard expansion pack. But as such, this seems to be the extent of the knowledge that we have about elder scrolls.
Thanks for listening.