Lore:An Argument For Common Sense
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Preserved by Gollred. According to family traditions, this text was written by his ancestor Uruld. The exact date is unknown.
A wave of insipid rumors have been filling the minds of our youth with flights of fancy. We cannot tolerate this. Ours is a life of cold and survival. A constant struggle to hunt, to forage enough food to fill our bellies. To find wood to keep our fires lit overnight. We cannot allow the young folk to become distracted by these fanciful tales of beastfolk!
Therefore, I have made it my duty to disprove all these rumors with the well of logic gifted to me by the Divines and great age. If, after reading this, you still believe in Fauns and Lamia and such, then I apologize. There is no more I can do for you. I hope you remember my fervent attempt to save you when your daydreaming results in a lean season and a rumbling belly.
We start of course with the beastfolk that do exist. These distant travelers, so different from our ways, are why the children think these others might walk or fly or swim through the world. Khajiiti traders carry stories from afar to fill the minds of our young with strange and flighty ideas. Argonians speak of their talking trees and lands so warm the soil weeps with water. They are real, do not think me close minded. But they have brought trouble to our villages with their stories and songs. Real! But trouble.
Let's start with these stories of fox folk. Utter hogs wallop. Recall that large Khajiit woman who said she was a Pahmar? Her head scraped the underside of the cabins and she could lift a wagon on her own! If she is a Khajiit, then surely Khajiit can look all kinds of ways. I refuse to be deceived by those who wish to prank me by making up new things when the real world is so fanciful. Not real.
More tall tales based on real folk. Tell me, you saw a scaled lizard person who lived near water? Sounds exactly like an Argonian to me. Perhaps you just could not see their legs, did not think to call out and say hello? Let us not be so ready to perceive slight differences in one folk and decide they are now two. Unwise and unkind, if you ask me. Not real.
Horsefolk have tainted the tales in the local tavern and childrens' games as well. I must deal with talk of centaurs! Half-man, half horse? Mounted riders seen through aging eyes, mark my words. Fauns are the same. Tales of their existence spread by the unreliable. There is nothing in the tales of fauns that could convince me that they are not goats as seen by inebriated druids. Not real.
One of those Elsweyr traders I mentioned could not stop telling stories about these feathered folk. Avian men and women with talons and the capacity for speech? Shor's bones! If birds are beastfolk, then I will eat a boar's droppings! We all know the birds featured in the traveling shows, colorful creatures that can mimic speech. Surely these birdfolk stories comes from the mouths of less thoughtful people seeing these chatty birds. Not real.
SLOAD, DREUGH, HADOLIDS, AND WHAT ALL
Wherever sailors and fisherfolk come together to tell tales, we hear of fanciful beastfolk roaming far and wide. I've been down to the edge of the water, so you cannot fool me. The sea is constantly in motion. What one sailor sees out of the corner of their eye may look to be a dreaded great toad beast or a crab man. But in truth? Nothing more than a rock or figment of their imagination. If nothing else, just look to how many of these supposed sea folk the sailors like to regale us with. Seems quite suspect, as if these ship hands just cannot help but top one another with taller and taller tales. Not real!
As for the last classifications of beastfolk, we have rude descriptions of folk unknown in the wider world. Remember, my age and the Divines allow me great insight. Have you ever seen a person from Valenwood? They dress quite strangely and smell of the distant forests. These "Imga," ape folk, don't you see? Wood Elves seen by people without my expansive mind. Imagine being so wrong, so close-minded that you see a person from another land and decide to imagine them as a fanciful creature. To immortalize their appearance and vilify them. Needless to say! Not real!
Consider this, young people. Think of my words. I hope my pleas will dissuade and preserve the minds of the youth. I have done all I can. I only hope that they see the sense in my logic and desist with these fanciful tales. Focus on the now, young ones. Lest the winter take you.
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