The Importance of Ysmir

Author: Wolf Lesser-Dragon, Cleverman of the Ysmir collective.

Scholars and Mages alike I present to you today the first of hopefully many dissertations and essays to come from our new and prestigious Ysmir collective. As it is the first study of our Institution I thought it’d be wise to begin with a paper on Ysmir, which I feel is appropriate since his name adorns our gates.

The Importance of Ysmir.

The famed "Dragon of the North" appears many times in Tamrielic history and usually as a bearded hero of Men who massacres the heathen Devils (Elves) in the name of Shor and sometimes even over the Cyrodiilic Akatosh. The first mention of Ysmir in recorded history is in the book “Before the Ages of Man” by Aicantar of Shimerene and tells of a warrior-king-who-goes-by-many-names.

Also during the Late Merethic Era the legendary immortal hero, warrior, sorceror, and king variously known as Pelinal Whitestrake, Harrald Hairy Breeks, Ysmir, Hans the Fox, etc., wandered Tamriel, gathering armies, conquering lands, ruling, then abandoning his kingdoms to wander again.

From that list 2 names immediately come to the fore: Ysmir and Pelinal Whitestrake, and because the author suggests that these 4 heroes are the same we can reason that Pelinal Whitestrake is Ysmir, Dragon of the North (although whether he was the first Ysmir is unknown). Pelin-El, as the Ayleids called him, was a hero of the early Cyro-Nords who helped lead the nascent Alessian Rebellion against their Ayleid oppressors. For these feats many a song was written about him by early Skalds and from the many fragments of these songs “The Song of Pelinal” is formed. From this song we can gleam a lot about his relationship with the Gods which is very important in finding Ysmir’s origin. The 2 main Divine (and most important) links to Pelinal are through the gods Shor and Aka. The link to Shor is shown within Volumes 4 and 5 which state that the Nord armies would say that they could see Shor in him and that some even called him a Shezzarine, an avatar of Shor. The connection to Aka-who-also-goes-by-names comes from a quote from Pelinal himself:

“O Aka, for our shared madness I do this! I watch you watching me watching back! Umaril dares call us out, for that is how we made him!”

Here Pelinal is attesting that his madness is caused by Aka’s madness (see Et’Ada, Eight Aedra, Eat the Dreamer) and thus it links Pelinal to Aka.

The next Ysmir to appear in our histories is the Nord Hero-King Wulfharth of Atmora. Wulfharth, similarly to Pelinal, also had songs sung about his heroics and the most famous one (and a favourite of mine) is the “Five Songs of King Wulfharth”. Straight away in the song Wulfharth is bestowed with 2 titles; Shor’s Tongue and Ysmir, Dragon of the North; and from therein it is plain to see that Wulfharth is an avatar of Shor. The final Ysmir I shall be discussing is Tiber Septim. It is common knowledge within the Empire that the Greybeards announced him to be Ysmir, Dragon of the North, during his rise to Empire and Godhood. We also know that Tiber Septim was a famed Dragonborn who relit the Dragonfires of Akatosh and wore the Chim El-Adabal of legend. Hence Tiber Septim is linked to Akatosh.

Unfortunately though both Wulfharth and Tiber are only connected to 1 out of the 2 Gods but the Arcturian Heresy written by Ysmir Wulfharth states that the God Talos was actually 3 different people Hjalti Early-Beard (the Dragonborn), Wulfharth of Atmora and Zurin Arctus (who is not important to Ysmir). Via this Heresy we can see that the Ysmir here is made up of two figures Wulfharth, who provides Shor and Hjalti (anon Tiber Septim), who provides Aka.

Therefore we now have 2 Ysmir’s (Pelinal and Wulf-Hjalti) who have links to the Enantiomorphic duality of Lorkhan-Auriel, Shor-Aka and Rebel-King. Since the enantiomorph of Lorkhan-Auriel was a mirror-echo of Anu-Padomay, the figure of Ysmir is another subgradiated echo of the original duality. The result of the first duality was Aurbis and the result of the second was Mundus. The result of the third and final is decided through Ysmir:

  • YSMIR AS PELINAL: FAILED (for there was no duality)
  • YSMIR as TALOS: SUCCEEDED (for the duality was embraced)

Ysmir as Talos "Reached Heaven by Violence" by which I mean attained Royalty by which I mean achieved CHIM. When Talos saw the myth-echo of Ysmir repeating throughout Un-Void from Aurbis through Mundus into the Starry Heart, he saw the Wheel-Turned Sideways, the I of the Godhead.

Talos didn’t attain CHIM after becoming a God, he attained it by becoming a God.