I'm travelling through a Nord ruin, manipulating a triolith puzzle, and am suddenly struck by a half-formed thought I've not yet given sufficient attention. Everything seems to come in threes.

On the forums, of course, there's the enatiomorph thing: king, rebel, and observer.

The Anuad has Anu vs. Padhomay over Nirni.

There's the Tribunal: Vivec, Almalexia, and Sotha Sil.

And there's the symbols on the trioliths. Bird and Serpent remind me of the phrase in Irek Unterge's "Then Light and the Dark", referring to these as one of many names for the duality whose conflict defines life in Tamriel... but the triolith's add a third: whale.

Is there anything known about the ancient proto-Nordic belief system that would indicate what these three symbols represent?

What three symbols are you referring to?

The Hawk, Snake, and Whale are the totems of Kyne, Shor, and Tsun. They are the most important gods of the Nords.

It's arguable that the snake is Shor. It's likely the fox is Shor's totem, not the snake.

Aren't there different symbols on different puzzles, though? I could be wrong about that, but I'm pretty sure that the symbols on the trioliths are different in different dungeons--though they're all selected from the same group of eight, of course, as are the symbols on the dragonclaw doors. These are the old Nordic totems, which were replaced by the better-known pantheons over time, but which remain recognizable as gods that we know by those other pantheons' names.

Three is simply a nice number to play around with. I wouldn't make too much of the fact that lots of things come in threes. We as humans seem to enjoy the number three, and that comes up all the time in real life as well as in fiction. I really don't think, to use your example, that Enantiomorphs and the turning-stone puzzles have anything to do with each other.

Nope, and in fact there's actually http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/27411/? that fixes that. Most likely, it came down to development priorities rather than intentional lore - fewer models and textures, fewer possible solutions that have to be scripted, etc.

Not to mention, if it were based on importance to the Nordic pantheon, I'd have to think the dragon would be one of the three in use.

Who else would the snake be? I know that incarnations of Lorkhan are foxes.. but nobody else fits the snake.

Not buying it.

It doesn't explain the serpent imagery found in Sovngarde, and there isn't an enantiomorphic relationship between the fox and dragon as there is with the serpent and dragon.

Hint: The Triskele, on a leather rope, around the neck, unable to be seen by the person wearing it as a pendant.

I'd say the incarnations are as much of a snake as Lorkhan.


ALMSIVI is more of a body then a trinity, Ayem is the body, Seht is the brain and Vehk is the spirit. They are one person separated into three.