The Nature Of Forsworn Magic

During my expeditions around the Reach, I discovered many interesting things about the practices or the Reachmen that live there. The native Reachmen (often called the Forsworn since the Markarth incident) practice a primitive and mysterious form of magic. Much of what the magic entails and what it does remains unknown due to their hostility towards outsiders and the fact that the techniques are passed down through oral tradition. The magic is rarely (if ever) written down. Nevertheless, I have managed to examine many of their rituals and come to a few conclusions on the nature of forsworn magic.

Any adventurer who visits a Forsworn settlement will tell you how instantly recognisable they are. Boundaries are marked by severed animal heads with the eyes removed and figures made of bones adorn the tents. Many adventurers will pass this off as warnings to would-be intruders but they seem to be much more than that. Throughout such settlements exist at least a few tables with severed heads, the bodies they once belonged to and a multitude of other unspeakable things. A lot of space is devoted to the desecration of animals, and the process is more complicated than it first seems. The eyes are removed before the head, and the body is embalmed for a purpose I couldn't tell. The eyes are dried and collected in an urn. This process implies that it is a more important task than just to look scary. They are likely to be as much to ward away daedra and other evil spirits as they are travellers. The bone figures- a mammoth's skeleton with a deer skull and two elk antlers draped at its side like wings, are sometimes placed above the tent of shamans or the hagravens that the Reachmen venerate. The Reachmen seem to believe that they will protect the important members of their 'society'.

Despite these primitive (and likely ineffective) magics, they have achieved some other, more remarkable things with the use of briar-hearts. I managed to get a good view of two hagravens creating one of these abominations. A volunteer (exclusively male) is chosen to be transformed, and is laid down on the table. He is then soul trapped by the witches. Next, they cut open the man's ches(To my shock, the volunteer barely flinched!). His heart is then cut out and placed in a bowl as his soul enters the soulgem gem. Then, a fresh Briar Heart flower is placed where his heart was and attached to the blood vessels around it. The flower is then enchanted with the soul gem. The hole in the man's chest is left open for the flower to continue to get sunlight and the witches begin to chant:

Heart of thorn, bones of the wild. In life, forsworn

Rise from death, blood of our blood

And thus, a briarheart is born.

-Andastyr Ashwing, College of Winterhold