Nordic Speaking Stones

By Eorlund Quick-Arrow

When discussing the marvels of the Ancient Nords most will speak of the architecture of the great barrows of Northern Tamriel or of the power of the legendary Thu'um. Few remember the magical prowess of the early Nords who created many wonders that are still with us to this day. One of their greatest creations were the Speaking Stones.These artefacts appear as small square pieces of stone carved with glowing blue runes and with a small central disk. When the disk is pressed an ethereal figure will appear and relay a message previously recorded on the device. The runes found on the object are in a currently unknown language, it appears distinct from Dovahzul despite the stones suspected origin in Atmora. This leads me to suspect another form of script existed among the Atmoran people.

The art of creating these stones has now been lost but occasionally a functioning stone may be discovered, these are frequently sold to collectors or taken to Winterhold for study. Similarly we now lack the knowledge to record new messages on these stones however, many stones exist which contain messages dating from as early as King Harald’s time. Many suspect that imbuing a stone with a message may require the energy from a soul gem however, this is just conjecture based on modern enchanting techniques. A number of these devices were used by Eboric Direfrost during his reclamation of Direfrost Keep, unfortunately many of these stones were stolen by bandits and their current location is unknown. These antiques of our past are sadly fading from our world and it it likely only a handful remain.

The stones are believed to have been created by the Clever Men of Jhunal using now lost arts of enchanting. They have existed since before the time of Ysgramor in Atmora, Jhunal himself is said to have gifted Ysgramor 500 of these stones before he set off on The Return. The use of these stones has been recorded up to the second era but after that accounts of these stones become rare. It is a great shame that these devices of our forebears are lost to us. These ancient communication devices were just one of the Ancient Nords creations which have been forgotten. This loss of ancient arts of our forefathers is but one way in each our formerly great people are declining. We must seek to rectify this decline of our people and endeavour to bring greatness to our people once more.