The Lay of PioneerModder
A new in-game book giving horses a creation myth, because I said I would.
As far as I know, the Elder Scrolls doesn’t have a creation myth for horses, which seems like a serious oversight that I’ve come here to correct.
I’m kidding. I told PioneerModder that if he taught Skyrim’s horses how gravity works, I’d write him a lay of his deeds so he’d go down in modding history, and he says he’s done it, so I wrote a thing in alliterative verse detailing the creation of horses, which you can find in the form of an in-game book by Whiterun Stables.
This is a joke mod, but I think it’s technically lore-friendly because, like I said, as far as I know, the horse doesn’t actually have a creation myth in Elder Scrolls lore.
Summary:
The icy sea wind ignores Dibella, so she traps it in a body as an eternal punishment. But because Dibella is the goddess of beauty, all of her creations are exquisitely beautiful, and she becomes afraid of the power of what she has made. So she commands it to never forget its former nature. The horse is successful, aiding humanity for many years, but it always forgets that it is no longer the wind, and often falls from great heights. Then, after six centuries (I couldn’t think of enough good words that start with y), a cunning craftsman devises an enchantment to bind horses to the ground. The horse becomes a creature of the earth, but a spark remains of its airy being, and “when the wind of worthy warriors westward rises / The mare may yet remember her much-loved glee / And gallop with great speed, free across the frosty sea.”
Full text of the poem:
In the beginning of beginnings, before born the baneful world was
In the darkling dawn, Dibella did divine
A wailing wind of wintry woe, weeping with creeping keen
But swift and sure as Shor’s sweeping blade
Racing raucous and ranging rootless across the wet whale-road.
“Hark,” decried Dibella, “what woeful wind walks thither?”
The galloping gale gratified the god not
And slipped shrieking across the rimy sea.
“Impudence,” declared the deity, “what wet-walker, accursed air-soarer, ignores a god?”
The wrathful woman-form divinity was wroth
And set upon the sea-breeze a sacred sanction.
Upon the utterance of the god, upon the uttermost beginning of Nirn
The wild wind was caught, wrapped in blood-hide
Grace and glittering speed gelded and glumly got
Frost and fearsome fury turned to heat and naked fear
A spirit of air and shining stars struck stone-fast.
But dire Dibella was a Divine of delicacy and beauty
And not a one of her creations could charm and comeliness long evade.
So the shimmering and shrieking wind
Found in fire-form a fierce falciform finery;
Long of mane and tail, lean and limber of limb.
“Fie,” cursed Dibella the Divine, “what fearful ferocity have I wrought?
“What mythical master of matter and earth may race free?
“I command thee, forget not thy true nature, thy fierce unfettered glee!”
And the ambling beast of burden and beauty
Could never come to terms, never console itself
And oft forgot its flesh-fetters, falling free from fearsome height whence it had thought to soar.
Yet the earthly equine eternal remained
And aided all humanity in endless endeavours
Applying animal affinity and action with abandon
But for all its faith and fairness, fell frequently,
Dropping stone-dead when its divine-ascribed nature was forgot.
But when six centuries had slowly slipped by
A wandering maker, creator of cunning craft
Devised a devilish, daring design:
An enchantment of surpassing elegance
An effect to bind equine to earth.
“Forget thy fierceness!” quoth the maker, “forget thy freedom!
“Thou hast in thy earthly form an eternal embrace entered
“A bond between beast and man, a flesh-vow of family.”
Thus did the gleeful gale gain gravity
Thus did the maker enter into the annals of eternity
Thus was Dibella’s covenant cracked and crushed.
The horse gained ground, and man gained a friend forever
Yet in the beast’s brown and beautiful eye burns
An ember of memory, an airy attachment always remaining
Though the maker’s craft was clever and cunning
Dibella’s divine decree could not be destroyed entire.
The wailing wind of whale-road wide
Holds tightly to its horse-home
And when the wind of worthy warriors westward rises
The mare may yet remember her much-loved glee
And gallop with great speed, free across the frosty sea.
Future plans:
None. Works as intended.
Credits:
Poem is mine, please don’t repost the text anywhere. Thanks to PioneerModder for apparently fixing horses. I need it, dude. Thanks to Bethesda for spawning more creativity over the past six years than anyone reasonably assumed.
