#orkey

Cloven Duality.

Skyrim Lore time!

You remember the Horkers?

I bet you, drakes to septims, that Orkey was actually named Horkey and that his emblem was not the serpent, but the Horker, and the serpent came later.

Plus, a triage of tusks? Interesting. There is someone who is associated with threes...

Now, how did I come to this conclusion, and better still, why?

Well for one, its etymology with Orcs.

See, the word "orcs" is derived from Orcus, the Roman God of the Underworld and of Oaths (Ah, an association with our favorite god, Malacath). But it goes farther, because Orcus was one of those gods adopted from Greek Mythology mashed into Roman Mythology.

His original name is Horkus, the God of the Oath, and the god that comes after you when you break one (not Styx, important distinction).

It obviously wouldn't take much to get from Horkus to Horker. Add that dash of "To hork is to devour greedily" and boom, a new animal.

Why draw the godly distinction? Well it has tusks, three of them, and there is a trinity god who ended up with tusks.

But that brings the question of what's up with Orkey being associated with Snakes?

The Snake - Orkey Mural

Concept art for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

Alduin (The Dragon)

Dibella (The Moth)

Jhunal (The Owl)

Kyne (The Hawk)

Mara (The Wolf)

Orkey (The Snake)

Shor (The Fox)

Stuhn (The Whale)

Tsun (The Bear)

While General Tullius is a hundred times more competent than 95% of Skyrim’s NPCs or so, there is one glaring mistake he makes as a military governor (though he would have to convince High Queen Elisif to get onboard, which shouldn’t be too difficult):

He does not restore Old Nord Faith to Skyrim (which is not outlawed, and perfectly compatible with being Imperial), and use it as propaganda against Ulfric and his Stormcloaks.

If you are familiar with the Old Nord myths about Shor/Lorkhan’s death, I am just going to summarize it as this:

Torygg=Shor Elisif=Kyne Ulfric/Stormcloaks=Trinimac/Merethic et’Ada

For those less versed in Elder Scrolls mythology: Shor was the God of Men who made sure the mortal world was created, he was later killed by the Elven gods Trinimac and Auri-El atop the Adamantine Tower in the Dawn Era, and Kyne, his widow, became the chief deity of Mankind according to Nord folklore (not Alduin/Akatosh or Ysmir/Talos!).

It’s like the perfect base for pro-Elisif propaganda (Kyne is the beloved mother goddess of the Nords who breathed them to life atop the Throat of the World and bestowed them Voices and made them hardy against the cold), that would also undercut Ulfric’s claims of restoring the TrueNordFaith(TM)... And it would make getting Whiterun on the Imperial side with the Temple of Kynareth, Gildergreen,  Skyforge and windy plains a bit of a Big Deal to prop up the Elisif-Kyne connection...

Yes, this would religiously fracture the Nords a bit away from Imperial Cult (which is an evolved hybrid of Nordic and Ayleidic faiths, though both those faiths recognized the other), but it would be less of a schism than between Hammerfell and the Empire, and not at all unbridgeable.

It also would have given the Old Nord Faith a spotlight in its homeland instead of being tucked away in a shack with an old man...

Lots of them! Tho irl I’d be a Redguard, with some Nord blood.

One headcanon, or theory I guess is that Paarthurnax came up with what we know of the way of the voice today with Jurgen to keep the Nords under control without ruling them. It disarms the general population and keeps the Nords who do know the thu’um under his control, which is why when applied to the other dragons, they referred to it as “His Way of the Voice”, as though the Way of the Voice wasn’t a thing the other dragons followed at all.

So really, the modern Greybeards are essentially a modern Dragon Cult.

Another headcanon, Ulfric Stormcloak and Balgruuf the Greater were best friends and both played “Tongues” as children (that sounds weird, lol I mean Nordic Tongues of course) and fantasied about being called up to High Hrothgar.

And when Ulfric actually was called, Balgruuf never forgave him for leaving and for rejecting their ways to return to Skyrim’s people and fight the Thalmor.

Lol these are sad headcanons but Nords are a grim people with grim history and stories.

Here’s a happy one, some Nords respect animals even more than Bosmer, and ask the spirit of the ones they hunt for forgiveness when their lives are taken. Every now and then Kyne will let the animal’s spirit be seen to show that the Nord is forgiven and that it was a good kill, so long as everything of the animal is used.

Nords also hold rituals and have days when they honor one or more of these animals and leave food for them outside their homes or in the woods. An egg for snakes, for example, in warmer parts of Skyrim where snakes live, to keep Orkey away (for those that think Orkey is the Snake, I still say it’s Shor).

Solitude’s ancestors domesticated some of the local silver wolves they’re known for by often leaving these tributes for Mara and her wolves specifically, and they moved closer and closer to the Nords there and the surrounding settlements until they became famous for their wolf companions, especially amongst Nord nobility. 

Nords according to signs are sometimes named after an animal at birth by clever men and women in lore, like if they’re said to be saved by this animal in the future, so those men and women will not kill those creatures. Example, people with the moniker of Wolfkin. And their patron god or goddess matches up with the animal. Wolfkin’s patron would be Mara, but they honor Kyne above all as the chief god of the pantheon, and the Kiss at the End.

Part of a much bigger poem/story I wrote-