I can't post the entire text here because it is long and formatted in a way that hides the annotations (like YR's notes in PGE1), and there are images too.
The White-Gold Concordat:
https://en.uesp.net/wiki/User:Jimeee/Fiction/White-Gold_Concordat
by Hroldar One-Eye
Lots of elves say they is the best at magic. They got towers and robes and words nobody understands. But magic is magic. If a wizard can blow up a fort or live five hundred years, thats enough for me.
Elves always make lists about magic cause they think reading makes em wise. So here's a proper Nord list instead. This one tells you who was strongest, who done things worth remembering and who wasn't a complete milk-drinker.
Shalidor
Strongest wizard what ever lived. Built Labyrinthian so confusing that folk still get lost in it. Made whole cities appear from nowhere. Even the elves had to admit he was clever, though you know that burned em inside. My pa said Shalidor once argued with a king for three days till the king forgot what they was arguing about and gave him land just to make him leave - thats real power.
Frandar Hunding
Redguard warrior wizard. Conquered lands and fought wars instead of sitting a tower reading bug-covered scrolls. They say he could make a sword from his own soul or something. Sounds ridiculous, but then again Redguards say lots of ridiculous things right before cutting a man in half. Would rather have a real axe myself. Far as wizards go, Frandar hardly even feels like one. Thats probably why I like him.
Ahzidal
Old Nord wizard. Ysgramor's own clever-man. Learned elf and dwarf magic cause revenge wasnt enough for him - thats dedication. Made armor so strong folk still dig em up thousands of years later. Then he went mad but honestly most powerful wizards do eventually. My uncle says thats why you never trust a clever Nord.
Zurin Arctus
Imperial wizard for Tiber Septim. Helped conquer half the world then turned into some undead spirit thing after messing with magic. Any man who helped Tiber conquer elves cant be all bad.
Sotha Sil
Dark elf machine wizard. Likes brass and built some tiny fake city full of people and clockwork bugs. Supposedly could stop time and knew things before they happened. Sounds miserable honestly. Maybe strongest wizard ever? Maybe not even a wizard anymore. Don't know. Don't care. Probably dangerous.
Iachesis
Old Psijic elf. Lived forever. Nobody knows what them island monks even do. Probably spent fifty years staring at candles thinking deep thoughts. Hard to respect folk what disappear every time theres a war.
Kagrenac
Dwarf smith wizard. Hit Shor's heart with a magic hammer till his whole race vanished. Still not sure if that's impressive or the stupidest thing ever done. Maybe both.
Neloth
Dark elf wizard. Rudest old bastard alive but he does know magic. Lives in giant mushroom and talks to people like theyre skeevers. Saw him once in Raven Rock yelling at a servant because his tea was warm. Whole room looked terrified. Good wizard though.
Divayth Fyr
Another dark elf wizard. Been alive forever. Keeps monsters and copies of himself in a mushroom tower. Knows every spell probably. Sounds like a nightmare - would not visit.
Vanus Galerion
Started the Mages Guild. Good idea honestly. Better learning spells from a guild than from swamp witches or daedra cults. Elves hate him which means he probably done something right.
Kasorayn
Breton fire wizard. Lived on some island pretending to be the king of the druids instead of acting normal. Lots of trees and old stones and weird rituals probably. Still, fire magic is respectable. Burned alot of things. Finally a wizard with sensible ideas. Better than illusion tricks and talking in riddles like most Bretons.
Azra Nightwielder
Shadow wizard. Dont really understand this one. Did magic with shadows somehow. Sounds like the sort of thing that gets a man cursed. A Breton I met near Karthwasten swore Azra once tried to become every version of himself at the same time and blew a hole in Hammerfell big enough that folk built a village in it after. Thats wizard behavior if you ask me.
Voernet
Old Breton wizard. Honestly never even heard of him till a friend from Dawnstar mentioned him after too much mead. Talked with them Psijic monks back when everybody still wore animal skins and hit each other with rocks. Apparently Bretons think he was one of their greatest wizards ever - which for Bretons probably means he read alot and didnt die in a swamp.
Gyron Vardengroet
Breton plant wizard. Made forests and roots do things. Never trusted people who like plants that much.
Mannimarco
Dead wizard. Makes skeletons and ghosts and worse things. I heard he became a moon or a god or both. Smells like grave dirt probably. Very bad. Very strong.
Orgnum
Sea elf wizard king. Been around so long nobody even knows how old he is anymore. Spends most his time riding sea snakes and hating High Elves (which is understandable).
N'Gasta
Big slug wizard. Stole souls, filled his tower with skeletons, and trapped dead folk with some giant soul spell. Even other necromancers thought he was impressive, which is worrying. Some Redguard finally killed him.
We moved inland from Hsaarik Head without pause.
The Five Hundred did not divide, nor did we spread thin. We went as one body, turning where need or elf blood drew us. Mereth lay open before us. The elves did not stand. Word fled before steel, and villages were found empty ere our feet touched them. Their halls were burned, that warning might be given unto those yet unseen.
They fled at the coming of the Northern Horde.
I allowed no quarter. The land had been soaked already, and there was no peace to be had upon it. Those who could not flee were put to the axe. Thus the way was cleared.
Before long, envoys came.
They bore the marks of rank and spake with careful tongues. They named Selgriath, Arch‑Sage and ruler among the elves, and offered accords and restraint. I did not hear them through. Their tongues had been sharpened too long by lies. I slew them where they stood and sent their bodies back northward.
Let Selgriath know my answer entire.
He answered with sorcery.
At the foothills of Shearpoint, his sorcerers met us in force, and their ice magic fell upon us for two days and nights unceasing. Frost-things rose from the ground and tore Men asunder. We closed ranks and pressed on regardless. We of Elder Wood do not kneel to cold. Yet we closed our ranks and pressed onward, for the sons of Elder Wood bow not unto cold. Wuuthrad struck down those who stood behind spell and stone alike.
On the third day, the hill was ours.
The elves scattered as before, but now terror had learned its lesson. The north was no longer theirs to abandon at will. It was taken.
It was there, as we turned toward the ruins of Saarthal to set our footing firm, there came unto us a lone rider. He called himself Ahzidal.
He bore the scent of elven magic and distant lands, and there was no softness in his eyes. He spake of Saarthal as one speaketh of a wound newly opened, and he offered his allegiance in full. What he brought with him was knowledge wrested from our enemies and tempered by hatred no less sharp than my own.
I took him into our company.
The Return had gained another edge and it was known for what it was.
Not retribution alone, nor grief made steel... but conquest made certain.
We marched southward across the hot springs and the accursed elf-capital stood ahead of us.
Arthalaan... broad walled and laden with towers, whole and defiant.
At the sight of it my blood rose, and the debt borne since Saarthal pressed sore upon me. From this place had gone forth judgment against my people. From these walls had issued word and spell that burned our first city and cast its dead into ash.
Yet I made no haste in the taking of it.
For the city was to hear its answer.
I went unto the gates and lifted up my voice, that stone and flesh alike might bear witness. And I commanded that my words be set down as I spake them... not sung, and not shaped, but set as they fell. For I would not have any man or elf in days to come say that the cause was hidden, or that the judgment was given in madness. Let it be bound to stone and mark alike.
I showed unto them Wuuthrad, whose edge drove our ships.
I named Saarthal. I named betrayal.
I named Kyne, who had bidden me claim this land of ice and stone. For it was on this soil that her exalted breath gave birth to my kin, and it is to this soil we Return to claim what is ours.
I said there would be no peace and no terms. There would be only account.
But the gates were shut, and the walls answered not.
Then stood Ahzidal beside me, and he marked the stone and the air above it, tracing signs that were not of our making. And he said unto me where the wards drank power, and where their strength would first fail. I asked him not how he knew these things.
We broke the gates at his word.
The Five Hundred entered as one body, and then were poured forth into the streets. The elves made no stand worthy of the name. Some fled at once. Some hid. Some sought mercy that had already been denied them. None were spared by command.
Where sorcery was worked against us, Ahzidal answered it. When spells were raised, he cut them away. When the elves called upon ancient workings, he turned them inward. Their power did not fail... it was used against them.
The work took days.
I gave no order to cease. The city was emptied deliberately, not in frenzy but in purpose. Those who bore arms fell first, and then those who did not. What might be burned was burned. What would not burn was broken down to its foundation.
And when the killing drew near its end, Selgriath was brought before me, with those who named themselves his council. They looked upon the ruin of their dominion and spake nothing. Neither did I ask them aught.
They were beheaded before what remained of their halls, and their heads were set upon pikes of unmelting ice, raised high above the dead, that all might see whose words had been answered, and how.
Thus did Arthalaan cease.
And I walked the streets once more in silence. Wuuthrad lay heavy in my hand. I felt no gladness, nor did I seek it. I knew only that the first city of Men had been answered by the last city of elves in the north.
We did not remain.
There was yet much land, and the Return had not ended with one city, no matter how great its fall
Journal of Ysgramor
Entry II — Upon the Sea of Ghosts
Entry V: The Storm of Separation
Entry VI — Inland
Entry VII — Arthalaan
Recorded by Scribe Halvyr of Solitude, at the request of the Collegium of Provincial Histories
This debate, concerning the causes and consequences of Ysgramor’s campaigns against the Snow Elves, was held in the Hall of Record in Solitude in the year 4E 202.
Participants
Falas: I maintain that Ysgramor’s war did not end with victory alone, but with the effective unmaking of a people. Whether that result was intended or not is uncertain, but it cannot be ignored. My argument is not that the Nords acted without cause, but that cause does not account for consequence.
Hrothmund: I hold that Ysgramor’s war was a just response to an unprovoked atrocity. What followed was the hard but necessary outcome of that act. The Snow Elves waged war and were defeated. To reach beyond that is to invent meaning where none was left by those who lived it.
Falas: There is something we must address before we speak of Saarthal. You call it the beginning, but beginnings have causes.
Hrothmund: Saarthal was cause enough. There is no need to look beyond it.
Falas: There is always cause beyond an event, even if it has been forgotten. Some hold that the reasons for that attack have long since been lost, whether through time or convenience.
Hrothmund: You suggest justification... for the slaughter of a city?
Falas: No. I suggest context. Those are not the same thing. The Atmorans arrived. They did not ask leave. They did not seek accord. They came, and they settled. I ask... by what right?
Hrothmund: Right? Our forebears did not come as strangers, but as those returning. Skyrim was always ours. It is told that Kyne breathed the first of men at the Throat of the World. Our coming was not arrival. It was Return.
Falas: Then your claim rests not on history, but on origin. Very well. Let us examine that. The earliest human remains uncovered in Skyrim do not support what you claim. Those that can be dated with any certainty originate further south, in Craglorn and Cyrodiil. The material record places your beginnings elsewhere.
Hrothmund: You would reduce a people to what can be dug up and dated. We do not. Our claim is not that we were there before all others, but that the land was promised to us... whether we stand upon it or not. That is not proven in soil and bone. It is carried in what we are.
Falas: A claim, then, resting on myth. And you would set that above those who lived there in fact? You speak of breath and gods and first moments, but the Snow Elves required none of that. They were present. They lived upon that land. They shaped it. By what reasoning does a story outweigh a people?
Hrothmund: By the reasoning that origin is not erased by absence. A homeland does not cease to be such because it is occupied.
Falas: Occupied!? Outrageous. You name those who lived there before you as occupants of what you already believed was yours. There was never a question of sharing the land, was there?
Hrothmund: There was a question of reclaiming it.
Falas: Reclaiming presumes loss. Loss presumes possession. What you call return, they would have seen as arrival.
Hrothmund: Ha! Look at the hypocrisy from the elf. Your own people migrated to Morrowind from Summerset... based on what? A myth.
Falas: My ancestors didn't exterminate an entire people.
Falas: Let us grant your claim for a moment. Let us say your forebears believed they had the right to settle. The question remains, how did they conduct themselves once they had done so?
Hrothmund: They built. They lived. Saarthal was no fortress of conquest. It was a city of men, women and children.
Falas: It did not remain what it was at first. Your own records show expansion. Boundaries did not hold. What began as settlement became encroachment. Land was not merely inhabited, it was taken.
Hrothmund: Taken, you say, as though it lay in their sole possession. There was no line drawn that we crossed, no boundary agreed that we broke. We settled where we could, as all peoples do... you speak as though they were wronged by our presence alone. If that is so, then there could have been no peace from the beginning.
Falas: You were not alone on that land. You settled among a people already present, and your presence did not remain contained. You built temples... openly! To gods that were not theirs, raised on land that was. Do you believe this held no meaning for them?
Hrothmund: We do not hide our beliefs. Nor should we.
Falas: No. But you chose where to display them. In contested land, among a people who did not share them. You call it faith but they would have seen it as provocation at least, and blasphemy at worst.
There are also accounts of raids. Far off settlements, isolated communities, beyond your walls. Small places that could not resist.
Hrothmund: You present rumor as fact. There is no proof.
Falas: There is pattern. Enough of it to show your people did not remain in place. They pressed outward. You speak of survival, of right, of return. Taken together, they describe something else. Expansion.
Hrothmund: Movement does not mean intent to conquer.
Falas: No, but it does not exclude it. When movement does not stop, those who stand in its path do not wait to be certain of its end. What did you expect them to do?
Hrothmund: They could have spoken. They could have warned us.
Falas: You had already begun to take. To build. To spread. What warning would Ysgramor's people have accepted, and when would they have stopped.
Hrothmund: That was never their decision to make.
Falas: Nor yours alone to ignore.
Falas: Let us speak of Ysgramor's "Return"... a word used to disguise what was can be sufficiently recognized as a genocide. His war-path led to the capital of the Snow Elves, Arthalaan.
Hrothmund: Yes, the heart of their empire, from where the decree against Saarthal was no doubt made.
Falas: You call it a heart, I will accept that.
Hrothmund: It was. Strike the heart, and the war ends.
Falas: Yes. Strike the heart, and the body fails. That is understood. But by your own accounts he did not end there. They say the blows continued. If the heart had already been struck, why continue cutting.
Hrothmund: Because war is not clean. And because we had reason. We were attacked, our people slaughtered. Do you say we had no right to defend ourselves after Saarthal!?
Falas: No. You had that right. But what followed was not defense, nor was it comparable.
Hrothmund: It was war.
Falas: It was more than that. Saarthal was one city. One act. You claim it was on authority of the crown, but what's your evidence? There is none. You answered it with a campaign against an entire people.
Even if I grant you it was on order of the crown....by what reasoning does the destruction of one settlement justify the eradication of an entire race? Do you say that all Snow Elves stood at Saarthal? That all bore equal blame? That every city, every outlying village, every life was part of that single act?
Hrothmund: They made no effort to separate themselves from it. They did not come to answer for it.
Falas: And so silence became guilt. Absence became guilt. Existence itself became guilt. You call it defense. But defense ends when the threat is answered. What you describe did not end. It spread from the northern coast to the Jerall mountains. It continued beyond the moment that gave rise to it.
Also, there are some who would argue that Saarthal did not create your war, but revealed it. That the desire for expansion was already present. That the attack on Saarthal gave you what you needed, a cause that could unite the Atmorans, a justification no one would question, a reason to expand terriroty as far as it could be taken.
Hrothmund: That is accusation, not argument.
Falas: It is possibility. And one that fits the shape of what followed. A war that did not stop when it could have. Did not narrow when it should have. Did not distinguish between those responsible and those who were not.
You say you defended yourselves. I say you continued long after defense had meaning.
Hrothmund: You speak as though you stood there. You did not. You do not know what was required.
Falas: No. But I can read what was done.
Falas: Then we come to Moesring, and to the Snow Prince. Your own records state that when he fell, their resistance collapsed in a single moment.
Hrothmund: He was their champion. Such men hold armies together. When they fall, others break.
Falas: Before him, unity. After him, something else.
Hrothmund: And he was not treated as some lesser thing. Even in victory, he was honored. We did not cast him aside as we would a common foe. He was laid to rest with respect, given a proper burial in a barrow. That is not the work of those who seek only destruction.
Falas: A burial, yes. And yet, not as one of your own. The Nords know how they honor their dead. The barrows of your people are sealed in ice, bound in stalhrim where it may be had, preserved as something meant to endure. That was not done for him.
He was set apart, acknowledged, and then set aside. Honored, perhaps. But not preserved.
Hrothmund: He was not one of us.
Falas: No. And that is precisely the point. You recognized what he was in the moment of his death. Enough to mark it and remember it. Not enough to carry it forward as anything that might challenge what followed.
Falas: The Snow Elves today are gone. Not displaced, not driven into other lands. Gone.
Hrothmund: They were defeated. Peoples vanish in war.
Falas: No. They are not where defeated peoples are found. Name me one city beyond Skyrim where they rebuilt. Name me one enclave? One community living under another banner. There are none.
No cities remain. Not even ruins. What stone did survive was broken, taken, and built into your own halls. Their presence does not endure... it was used and forgotten. No art, books or literature. No records carried beyond their fall. No artifacts preserved as the work of a people still understood. Nothing. Did they vanish into Aetherius?
Even those driven from their lands leave traces. The Orcs were driven from Hammerfell by the Yokudans. They endure still. You can find them in Orsinium, among other lands, living proof of defeat without eradication. This is what it means to lose, and yet remain.
That is not what happened here. There are no Snow Elves in exile. No Snow Elves in hiding among other nations. No continuity. No survival. Tell me again they were merely defeated?
Hrothmund: Then they were weak...
Falas: Your rebuttal is weaker.
#The true fate of the Snow Elves
Falas: I move to the thesis by my esteemed colleague, Ursa Uthrax, author of The Falmer: A Study. The Snow Elves did not vanish - they became what are now called the Falmer.
Hrothmund: You bring that tripe here. Its a story made to fill silence.
Falas: Yes, you have heard it and dismissed it. Which is why I have not come to repeat it. Instead I introduce new evidence.
In my hand I hold texts written by survivors of Ysgramor's genocide. These were recovered from a hitherto unknown Snow Elf ruin, and were translated within the past year at the College of Winterhold. These are not my words. They are Snow Elf:
>And when the Snow Prince fell, the ice elves divided above and below...
Falas: Divided... There is more, I quote:
>"I tire of the tears of women and children. My own have run dry... Yet I cannot force the images of my own losses from my mind. And now in a time when our people should be banding together it feels we are drifting apart. The Nords have truly won. Our once great pride and unity are shattered."
Falas: Here is another, I quote:
>"It has been decided that we must flee to seek help and protection. The Snow Prince has fallen. We are scattered."
>"In the night I overheard the Old Ones whispering secrets of the underground and the Dwemer who dwell there... The Old Ones must know of these stories for it has been decided that we will change course upon first light. I feel hopeful that the Dwemer will help us to avenge our fallen and reclaim our land."
Falas: Scattered, not destroyed... and sought aid with the Dwarves.
Hrothmund: This proves little. How do we know these are not forgeries?
Falas: You doubt Winterhold? Just listen to this:
>Chained and enslaved. What once was light turned to blackness. Alone and betrayed. Sinking deeper into madness.
Falas: You asked where they went? They did not remain as one. They broke apart and were blinded and enslaved by the Dwarves.
Hrothmund: Even if that were true, it does not follow that we bear responsibility for what they became. Whatever was done to them in those depths was the work of the Dwarves, not ours. You cannot lay that at the feet of Ysgramor or his people.
Falas: No. Not directly. The Dwemer did what they did in their own time, and for their own purposes. But answer this instead, if you can. How did the Snow Elves come to stand at such a threshold, where that bargain could be made at all.
Hrothmund: They were defeated. You have said as much.
Falas: Defeat does not drive a people to blind themselves. Defeat does not force a people beneath the earth, to accept terms that unmake them. What you describe as victory did not end their story. It left them with no path that preserved what they were.
Hrothmund: That is not the same as saying we caused it.
Falas: No. It is worse. You removed every alternative.
Hrothmund: You show flight, fear, loss. That is all. You take fragments and build from them a conclusion that goes beyond what they prove.
Falas: Yes. That is all. Because this is what your histories do not say. They did not vanish. They stopped being themselves first.
Hrothmund: That… does not answer whether what was done was just. You move from what became of them to what we must answer for, and those are not the same.
Falas: No. They are not the same. But they are not separate either.
Hrothmund: What followed… was not ours. What the Dwemer did, what became of them below… that was not our hand.
Falas: Not your hand. But your war.
Hrothmund: We did what we had to. Saarthal demanded it. Our people demanded it.
Falas: And everything that followed was necessary.
Hrothmund: It was… It was right.
Falas: By what measure?
Hrothmund: Because it was OURS! Because we belonged there. Because we came back to what was always meant to be ours! We do not answer for it because we did not need to. It was OUR LAND. OUR RIGHT!
Falas: Your anger reveals much. I only ask you consider that what you call victory may not have ended with defeat, but with something possibly worse than a genocide.
Scribe's Note, post-debate:
The debate concluded without formal resolution. One spoke from inheritance, the other from consequence.
At a certain point, the exchange ceased to be an argument between positions and became instead a strain upon them.
Following the closing, Hrothmund Bear‑Voice withdrew from the hall without further reply. His departure was disorderly, and it drew a visible reaction from those present.
Several among the Nordic attendees rose with him, while others voiced objection or protest. A brief disturbance followed before order was restored.
It is the judgment of the undersigned that while no conclusion was reached, the terms of the discussion were not left unchanged.
I did not linger in the halls of Atmora.
I set south unto Jylkurfyk, where the land bends toward the Sea of Ghosts and the shipyards lie open to wind and tide. The city stood loud with labor. Axes rang upon timber. Pitch boiled. Keels were dragged and set. The yards stretched farther than a man may might across, crowded with frames rising like ribs of whales.
Here is Atmora's last strength.
The men built as though they raced the cold. Planks were hewn from what forests yet yielded them. Iron was beaten thin and true. Longboats took shape in number not seen in years, their prows carved, their hulls tarred against the ghost waters. This place remembers its purpose, even if the land beyond has begun to fail.
I set the work in order.
Yngol and Ylgar go forth at my word to gather men. They are known here, and rightly so. Yngol spake with captains and seasoned warriors, weighing minds as much as arms. Ylgar walks the yards and the training grounds, saying little, letting deeds call others unto him.
The captains answer.
Others follow... freemen, shield sisters, oath bound warriors - drawn not by promise, but by purpose.
The ships are named as they are given breath.
Ylgar takes command of the Darumzu. Yngol is given the Harakk, set beneath a clear star.
And I take the Skerd, whose planks were enchanted with numerous curses against elvenkind, each more malevolent than the last.
Each keel is blessed. Each mast is raised with care. I watch and judge, and when the count is done I name their number the Five Hundred, not for tally, but for memory... so that what was broken at Saarthal is not swallowed by time.
At last comes the Day of Final Passage.
The winds come fair, as if Kyne herself has had her say. The people gather upon the shore, and there is no feast nor delay. Oars are shipped. Sails are loosed. One by one, the longboats take the water, then the fleet together, dark upon the sea.
I stand at the prow of my ship and look southward.
Behind us lies Atmora, bound fast by ice and priest-law, yielding no new ground to men. Before us lies Mereth, already claimed by elven hand and elven deceit. They hold it not by right, but by blood shed in the dark at Saarthal. That debt is not answered by distance nor by time. The sea parts for us.
We go not to found, but to reclaim.
Not to settle, but to judge.
Not to ask leave of the gods, for their witness was given on the Night of Tears.
Every keel that cuts the water bears the memory of that burning. Every oar stroke answers a scream left unheard. Wuuthrad lies ready, and it remembers as I do.
Mereth waits, whether it wills it or no.
The elves have had their hour upon it.
Now comes the Return
Yngol is gone from the world of men.
The storm took him.
It rose swift and without counsel. The wind tore the fleet apart, driving ship from ship and sound from sound. Signals failed. The sea would not be mastered. Each crew was made alone, and no man could better his fate by the strength of another.
I beheld the Harakk at first light. Her sail yet held. Her course was true. And Yngol stood upon her deck and lifted his arm unto me, and I returned the sign. Then the storm came between us, and I saw him no more.
For two days and nights there was no measure of time.
The waters were black, and the heavens were shut. Ships vanished as though struck from memory.
The moons passed over us as we made landfall in broken boats upon the northern coast, cast hard against the rocks of Hsaarik Head. Vessels lay scattered along the shore, broken or run aground.
Yngol's ship was not among us.
Ylgar came unto me when the truth was made known. He stood upright and spake nothing. I laid my hand upon him, and he did not break, though his breath trembled. This was all that passed between us.
Then went I unto the water's edge, and I cried out unto the sea. I named my son, and I called upon the ghosts that dwell therein, commanding them to yield what they had taken. I swore oaths, and I spoke into the wind. The sea answered with fury, and the sky with darkness.
At the coming of the next dawn, Yngol's longboat was found, cast upon the icy surf. Of his crew there was little sign. And later still, his body was found among the wreck and stone, taken by the sea in the common manner of storms.
I spake no word.
A barrow was cut beneath the face of Hsaarik Head, deep and set firm, after the manner of Atmora. And within it a stone seat was raised. And Yngol was set upon it upright, as befitteth a son of kings. His helm was placed upon his brow, and his hands were set at rest. Thus was order given where the sea had scattered.
And before the barrow was sealed, I commanded that marks be cut therein, while hands yet remembered the measure of him. For I would not trust song alone to bear this, nor the sea to keep faith. What the storm had taken once, I would not suffer time to take again.
I watched the marks struck, slow and sure. Stone does not forget as breath does.
>Sorrow. The Sea-Ghosts took Yngol,
>First Brother of Sail from Atmora’s Fleet.
>None on land,
>nor sky, nor sea,
>shall be as they were
>before this taking.
Beasts were taken from the hills and burned upon the shore, that his spirit go not hungry nor unmarked. Rites were given, and his name was spoken and bound unto the land.
Thus were Yngol and those who sailed with him made the first of the Children of the Sky to perish upon this soil.
And I stood long before the mound when the work was done. Wuuthrad departed not from my hand.
And the sea was silent.
Journal of Ysgramor
Entry II — Upon the Sea of Ghosts
Entry IV: The Sending Forth
Entry V: The Storm of Separation
#Entry II — Upon the Sea of Ghosts
We put to sea in the year of ruin, the waters bearing us north whether we willed it or no.
The ships are laden with men and what few goods we had torn from the fire. Smoke yet lay upon the horizon, though I refuse look upon it again. A leader who looks behind calls doubt to his side.
Verily, the Sea of Ghosts shows no mercy.
Ice crept upon the rails. Waves struck without warning. At times there passed beneath the hull shapes without number — dead Men, broken timber, and things more dreadful still. I did not ask which. The sea answers no questions.
My sons yet live.
Yngol took little rest. When night came and the storm rose, he stayed to the deck while I knelt and could not still myself. Grief took hold of me then, and I wept as I had not since boyhood. My tears fell heavy upon the planks, dark and shining as iron drawn from burial.
Yngol saw this and did not speak.
He gathered my tears and set me below, giving me drink and wrapping me as best he could. While I slept, he labored. He worked where the ship rolled and the wind howled, using what tools he had brought from Saarthal. Lightning struck near enough to serve his forge. Sea water cooled the metal. His hammer rang with the storm.
When I woke, the worst of the grief had passed.
Yngol stood before me and placed an axe in my hands — black as night, balanced and keen, wrought from sorrow and storm and given shape. I had no words for him. I embraced my son and knew that some part of what was taken had been answered.
I named the axe Wuuthrad.
Thereafter I did not set it down.
The clever-men made their signs and prayers, and I forbade them not, for the work was already done. We had crossed the sea with our lives. We had wrought steel from grief. We had sons yet.
Yet ships were lost upon that crossing. Some were broken upon the ice. Some were swallowed whole by the deep. We turned not aside.
And at the last, frost‑bound land rose up from the grey waters before us: Atmora.
When I set foot upon it, I knew this exile was no ending.
We had returned to the north with our oaths intact.
That would suffice.
#Entry III — Elder Wood
Atmora receives us, yet not as I remembered.
We make landfall upon the familiar shore, and my first order is to present myself before the high seat, as custom and duty do demand. The priesthood has ever ruled here, since before my father’s time and his father’s before him. I seek no quarrel with that order. It has bound the land through winters far harsher than this.
I hasten unto Kulaasdaanikgolt, High Priestess and Voice of the North, for so custom biddeth.
I find her stricken.
Her body is weakened, her breath thin, her sight unfocused. She spake in fragments where once her words carried command. The lesser priests attend her closely, keeping the rites as they have always done, yet their looks pass often from her to one another. The drah-gkon answer, but poorly.
It is from her still that judgment comes.
She bids me not linger in Atmora, nor spend Men where the land itself is failing, for the earth no longer answereth those who remain. She speaks of the southern shore and tells me that my work is not yet complete. Aid she cannot give beyond blessing. This land has little left to spare.
I leave her presence heavy of heart.
Only then do I look outward and see Atmora as it stands.
The cold is deeper than it was. The Calamity of Drekihrim has not loosened its grip. Forests once living stand frozen and silent, their trunks split and dead. The ice has learned how to remain, and it spreadeth season by season. Men speak now not of gain, but of holding fast.
As I leave the high fane, I look upon the shore and the hills beyond. I remember Atmora as it was: summers green and long, the coast alive with wind and calling birds, the cold sharp but honest. Much of that is gone now, taken by the Freezing and by years that do not mend.
I think then that such things do pass too easily. Words spoken do not hold them. Song turns with the skald. Even the land forgets itself in time.
I set no more thought to it, for there is work before me and longing does not feed Men. What is past cannot be seized again by will alone.
Yngol stands beside me and names the truth of what he sees. Ylgar walks the camps and listens, saying little. The people honor the priests still, yet fear moves beneath that honor, for the answers from the drah-gkon grow faint. Atmora does not fail in a single hour. It tightens, year by year.
I know then that our return here was no homecoming. Know thou that on this day Atmora looseth her hold upon us, and I do not gainsay her. We have come to witness the closing of an age. To remain would be to bind my people to a land already passing beyond saving.
I turn my thought again to the south, to Mereth, as I have been bidden.
Atmora birthed us.
It now releases us.
The Return does not end upon this shore.
It is given direction.
Journal of Ysgramor
Entry II — Upon the Sea of Ghosts
Entry III — Elder Wood
#A Treatise on the Journal Attributed to Ysgramor, Son of the North
Revised Editorial Foreword
By Quintus Herennius Marcellus
Senior Lecturer in Early Nordic Antiquity, University of Gwylim
Prepared with sanctioned access to restricted materials under writ of the Synod of the Imperial City.
Written in the 11th year of the Fourth Era
Among the innumerable accounts attributed to Ysgramor of Atmora, hero, conqueror, and progenitor of Nordic rule, few present greater challenge to the modern reader than this journal. It is neither saga nor hymn, neither law code nor simple chronicle. Instead, it occupies a rarer position: a record written by a man who displays a consistent concern with memory -specifically, with its failure - and who appears to have understood, often before he could name it, that power decays when memory does.
The manuscript from which this edition is derived was recovered late in the Third Era from a sealed stone coffer beneath the oldest foundations of Windhelm, during an Imperial survey of municipal vaults conducted under Uriel Septim VII. Its material form is consistent with early Atmoran craft: broad vellum, coarse binding, and a script that borrows elven scribal principles while rendering Old Nordic speech with striking restraint. That such care was invested in durability should not pass unremarked.
What distinguishes this journal most clearly from the Songs of the Return is not contradiction, but function. The Songs preserve identity. They sing of courage, vengeance, and inevitability. This journal does something colder and, perhaps, more dangerous: it fixes cause. Again and again, the author records not only what was done, but why - and he does so with an explicit anxiety that posterity might forget, distort, or soften those reasons.
Nowhere is this clearer than in the entry recounting the death of Yngol. The raising of the barrow beneath Hsaarik Head, and the ordering of marks to be cut therein, reveal an intent beyond mourning. Ysgramor does not entrust his son's death to song alone. He binds it to stone. This act may be read as the earliest expression of the principle that runs throughout the manuscript: that what is not fixed will be taken a second time, first by time, then by interpretation.
The same impulse is evident before the fall of Arthalaan, where Ysgramor records that he explicitly commanded his words be set down as he spoke them, "not sung" and "not shaped". This is no incidental detail. It marks a recognition that conquest without record invites revision, and that judgment without inscription decays into rumor. The sack of the elven capital is thereby framed not as frenzy, but as sentence - one meant to survive dispute.
Further, the script itself is significant. While scholars have long asserted that the Nords possessed no true writing prior to their extended contact with the Empire, this manuscript suggests an intermediate development: a phonetic system clearly influenced by elven principles, yet rigidly adapted to the cadences of Old Nordic speech. It is neither borrowed intact nor reverent in imitation. If authentic, it represents not the beginning of Nordic literacy, but its formalization.
That such a step should be attributed to Ysgramor is unexpected, yet not implausible. The conventional portrait of the Harbinger - as axe lord, conqueror, and destroyer - leaves little room for lawgiver or chronicler. Yet conquest alone does not found a kingdom, and memory alone does not survive without being fixed. In this respect, the journal forces a reconsideration of Ysgramor not merely as the ancestor of Nordic kings, but as a precursor (however accidental) to the administrative instincts later perfected by the Empire itself.
Scholars have often puzzled over how such documentary instinct could arise within a culture assumed to be predominantly oral. The journal itself offers an answer, though indirectly. Ysgramor repeatedly invokes teachings attributed to the Hoar Father, whose maxims survive not as song, but as carved Word Walls in the dragon tongue. The North has long understood that stone remembers when breath does not. In this light, the journal appears less an innovation than an extension: the application of an old Nordic habit of fixed truth to the business of law, rule, and empire.
It is therefore misleading to read this work as autobiography in the modern sense. The author rarely reflects upon himself except where necessary to fix lineage, intent, or consequence. Even his final concern - where his bones shall lie - is framed not as sentiment, but as orientation. Memory, for Ysgramor, is not an inward thing. It is positional, marked, and bound. Later generations would codify his policies of expansion and consolidation under the name Ysgramor's Decree. Later bards would elevate his judgments into inevitabilities. This journal resists both impulses. Its voice is stark, often uncomfortable, and curiously unadorned. That very restraint is its authority.
The reader should therefore approach the following entries neither as myth nor as moral exemplar, but as a deliberate act against forgetting. To read this journal is to encounter not the birth of Nordic song, but the foundation of Nordic record - a king's attempt to ensure that what was wrought would not, with time, be claimed by convenience.
The text that follows is presented without annotation, save where material damage or fragmentation requires it. What survives here does so imperfectly, and is offered as record rather than instruction.
Archival Notice
Filed in the Fourth Era within the Imperial Archives, White Gold Tower.
This manuscript was entered into the Imperial Archives upon the recommendation of the University of Gwylim, following examination and collation with several early Nordic stone inscriptions and fragmentary Songs attributed to the Return. Custodial responsibility accepted by the Imperial Library under standing charter. While debate regarding authorship persisted at the time of accession, subsequent material comparison - including script, phrasing, and internal consistency - has led this office to regard the journal as authentic beyond reasonable doubt.
Notably, passages once thought derivative of later Nordic law appear instead to precede them, suggesting that certain doctrines of conquest, expansion, and rule commonly grouped under Ysgramor's Decree were first articulated here in provisional form.
The manuscript has since been consulted sparingly, owing both to its fragility and to the severity of its contents. Where copies circulate, they do so under restricted leave. No abridged edition has been authorized.
It is the judgment of the Archives that this text be preserved as a primary record, not as literature, and that its words stand without commentary where possible. The author required no interpreter. The acts recorded speak plainly enough.
—Recorded and sealed by order of the Imperial Archivist
#Entry I — The Night of Tears
I am Ysgramor, son of the north, and this I write so memory does not rot.
Know this: Saarthal is undone.
The elves came not as guests nor as foemen of open field, but as thieves clad in stillness and fire. They crept through wards long kept, and broke faith before breaking walls. Ere steel was lifted in the streets, the city's end was already sworn.
Men fought. Women fought. Even the young cast stones with unshaken hands. Yet flame is no judge of valor, and treachery heeds neither plea nor courage.
In that hour I knew… though I had not before spoken it aloud… that they did not come for hearth and stone alone.
Beneath Saarthal there lay something: a weight set deep in the earth, a watching presence felt more than seen. Our clever men spoke of it seldom, and then only under closed beams and lowered voices, for it was old, and its breathing was not the breathing of Men. I knew it to be mighty, and not wholly ours, though I knew not its name nor true shape.
The elves knew it well.
When night had fully fallen, there was left naught to shield nor to save. I stood upon the deck of the last ship and beheld Saarthal burn. Kyne wept in great measure, as though she sought to smother the flames with her tears, yet the fire held, and would not be gainsaid. Towers bowed. Roof trees cried out. The sea bore us northward while the dying called to no shore. Yngol stood at my side and spake no word. He shed no tear. He watched until the smoke swallowed the stars entire.
Nor did I avert my gaze.
What was taken from us that night cannot be counted in stone nor bone. Our first city is ash. Only oath abides. As the oars struck the black waters and carried us toward Atmora, I vowed this: that whatever power the elves coveted beneath Saarthal, they would come to rue the price of their knowing.
The elves shall remember Saarthal.
And if they do not, I shall carve the lesson upon their bones.
#The Styles of Facial Hair in Tamriel
by Historian Wrex gro-Urdnot
#Chapter 6: Wood Elves
The Wood Elves of Valenwood possess one of the most subtle and least regimented relationships with facial hair in all of Tamriel. As with most aspects of Bosmeri life, their customs surrounding facial hair are shaped not by fashion or hierarchy, but by their covenant with the Green and their reverence for Y'ffre, the Storyteller.
Bosmeri facial hair is situational, personal, and often practical. There exists no single "Wood Elf style", and any attempt to define one is likely to be contradicted by the next village encountered beneath the canopy.
Wood Elves are frequently depicted as beardless by outsiders, a misconception born largely of their youthful appearance and slight features. In truth, many males are capable of growing facial hair, though it is typically fine, sparse, and uneven, rarely forming the full beards favored by Men. As a result, moustaches, chin‑tufts, and narrow jaw-beards are far more common, often worn intermittently rather than continuously. When styled deliberately, Wood Elf beards tend toward organic, asymmetrical forms. Swirling patterns carved gently into short beards are sometimes seen among hunters and dancers, mimicking the curl of leaves or the spiral of vines.
Among the Wood Elves, facial hair is rarely ornamental alone. It is frequently tied to function and environment. Hunters traveling far from their home groves may allow facial hair to grow for warmth, camouflage, or protection from insects and thorn-brush. Some tribes smear sap, resin, or crushed leaves into their beards to mask scent while stalking prey, washing these substances away later in ritual bathing accompanied by quiet thanks to the Green.
Tribal affiliation also plays a role. Certain clans favor distinctive beard shapes as subtle signifiers of belonging: forked chins, uneven trims, or deliberate asymmetry suggestive of leaf‑fall or broken branches. These signs are usually intelligible only to fellow Wood Elves and are often altered or abandoned when one joins a new tribe or passes through a significant life transition.
One notable style, favored particularly among traveling Wood Elves and certain clan leaders, is the "swallowtail", a forked goatee divided into two long, thin braids that fall independently, said to represent the diverging paths of story and action. Such styles are never rigidly prescribed, and their meaning often varies from tribe to tribe.
Falinesti Wood Elves, long accustomed to nomadic groves and itinerant living, tend toward lighter facial growth: narrow chin-tufts, thin moustaches, or complete shaving during seasonal migrations. Ease of travel, ritual flexibility, and rapid adaptation to new environs are prized among these clans, and facial hair is often removed during significant relocations or story‑turns.
By contrast, Inner Valenwood tribes, particularly those dwelling among the great graht-groves, are more inclined to cultivate deliberate facial styles. Here, resin-set swirls, braided chin‑beards, and the swallowtail are more commonly observed. These styles are not worn for vanity, but as quiet markers of belonging and continuity with place, allowing facial hair to become a living extension of local story-paths etched into bark and branch.
Religious symbolism remains ever‑present. Y’ffre is almost always depicted as bearded, his face framed by hair that resembles trailing moss or living roots in ancient carvings and woven tapestries. His beard is said to represent growth guided by story rather than force or design. Some Spinners, Greenspeakers and storytellers grow long, unkempt beards in deliberate imitation of Y'ffre, trimming them only when necessity or ceremony demands.
One such ceremony of profound importance is the Handfasting of the Silvenar and the Green Lady. Prior to this union, the Silvenar traditionally undergoes a ritual shaving of their beard, regardless of previous grooming custom. This act symbolizes the shedding of personal identity, for upon the Handfasting the Silvenar ceases to be wholly himself and becomes instead the living voice of Valenwood. The clean-shaven face marks a beginning without story - a deliberate emptiness into which the Green may speak anew.
Periods of mourning or transition may also influence grooming among the wider Bosmeri population. Some tribes allow facial hair to grow unchecked after loss, while others shave completely, returning the hair to the forest floor as an offering. Both practices are regarded as equally sincere expressions of grief, reinforcing the Wood Elf belief that form matters far less than intent.
In the end, Bosmeri attitudes toward facial hair resist easy categorization. Whether shaved, braided, spiraled, or left wild, a Wood Elf's beard is never merely decoration. As an old Valenwood saying reminds us: "The Green does not demand a shape... only that you listen."
Men
Mer
Chapter 7: Dark Elves
Chapter 8: Orcs
Beast Races
Chapter 9: Argonians
Chapter 10: Khajiit
Chapter 11: Other Races
#The Styles of Facial Hair in Tamriel
by Historian Wrex gro-Urdnot
#Chapter 5: High Elves
Among the High Elves of Summerset, facial hair occupies a curious and often misunderstood position. High Elven attitudes toward beards are governed less by trend and more by aesthetic philosophy. To the High Elves, the face is not merely flesh, but lineage made visible - and excess of any kind is treated with suspicion.
Broadly speaking, most High Elf men are clean‑shaven, a practice that dates back to the earliest Aldmeri traditions. Classical Aldmeri art, dating to the Merethic and early First Era, consistently depicts gods, heroes, and ancestor‑spirits as smooth‑faced and unblemished. Auri‑El himself is invariably rendered without beard or moustache, his face described in early hymns as "unbroken by shadow or age." Likewise, legendary figures such as Xarxes, Syrabane, and Phynaster are almost universally portrayed clean‑shaven in statuary, mosaics, and illuminated genealogies. Scholars generally agree that this established an enduring ideal: the perfected High Elves face is untouched by hair.
This has led some outlanders to mistakenly assume that facial hair is considered uncouth or shameful among the Altmer. This is not so. Rather, beards are viewed as purposeful, and therefore must justify their presence.
Indeed, bearded Altmer are by no means rare, particularly among scholars, Sapiarchs, Psijics and elder mages. In these circles, a neatly kept beard is often interpreted as a visual marker of intellectual devotion - a sign that the wearer has chosen contemplation over presentation. The most common style among learned High Elves is a short, narrow beard worn close to the jaw, carefully trimmed and entirely free of ornamentation. Anything flamboyant is regarded as gauche, if not faintly embarrassing.
Several Sapiarchic treatises from the First Era make indirect reference to this custom. One oft‑quoted passage from On Symmetry and the Mortal Form by Vaelion, Sapiarch of Grooming, Lineage, and the Cultivated Form notes: "The beard, like the robe, must never speak louder than the mind beneath it." For this reason, braided, dyed, or excessively long beards are almost unheard of in Summerset proper.
Age also plays a significant role. Younger High Elves overwhelmingly remain clean‑shaven, while beards are more commonly adopted later in life, often after one has completed formal education or attained a respected scholarly post. To prematurely grow a beard is sometimes seen as an affectation, an attempt to borrow gravitas before it has been earned.
Notably absent from High Elven custom is any strong association between beards and masculinity or virility. Such notions are considered crude imports from Mannish cultures. Among the High Elves, composure and proportion are far more valued than displays of ruggedness. This may explain why even Altmeri warriors and battlemages are typically clean‑shaven, preferring helms and crests to frame their faces rather than facial hair.
During periods of political or cultural upheaval, facial hair has occasionally taken on symbolic meaning. During the Velothi Exodus, Veloth and his followers are recorded as having shaved their hair entirely as they departed Summerset. This act is widely interpreted as a symbolic rejection of Aldmeri aesthetic ideals and ancestral perfection, a deliberate casting off of lineage, refinement, and even physical continuity itself. In this light, the smooth face, so long an Altmeri ideal, was transformed into a statement of exile rather than purity, marking the Chimer's irrevocable choice to leave Summerset, its gods, and its ordered beauty behind.
A handful of dissident Sapiarchs during the late Second Era are recorded as having deliberately grown beards in imitation of human scholars, an act widely criticized at the time as both unserious and self‑indulgent. Conversely, some traditionalist circles regarded this as evidence that prolonged exposure to Men leads inevitably to aesthetic decline.
In Summerset today, the prevailing attitude remains unchanged: a beard is acceptable, but never necessary. It neither grants honor nor invites disgrace on its own. As one High Elven aphorism succinctly puts it: "Wisdom is not grown... it is revealed."
Men
Mer
Chapter 6: Bosmer
Chapter 7: Dunmer
Chapter 8: Orcs
Beast Races
Chapter 9: Argonians
Chapter 10: Khajiit
Chapter 11: Other Races