I told Lydia we needed to part ways and she could wait for me in our house in Whiterun, and she left. Then I went to hire that mage Marcurio in Riften, but he rejected me saying I already had someone with me. So I went back to Lydia, to at least have her back as a follower, but she rejected me too, saying the exact same thing. What do I do now?

Sounds like you got glitched. Search the bugs/hints section or google it. Usually the solution to glitches is to reload an old save.

I did reload and old save, it didn't work. All this happened after I bought the Whiterun house, maybe that's got something to do with it?

did you come across a stray dog and tell it to wait?

Do you have the companions quest where Farkas joins you? I'm pretty sure he replaces your companion. He might be waiting for you somewhere to finish the quest with him so the game won't let you pick up another companion until you do that.

This.

I just had this bug, but with the Stray Dog. Happily a fellow forum member found the solution.

If you want to get rid of your follower ANIMAL, then write into the console: "set playeranimalcount to 0"
If you want to get rid of a normal FOLLOWER, then write this into the console: "set playerfollowercount to 0"


Well it seems you just forgot about the quest... Anyway, these commands might help people with similar problems

Oh god, yes you're right. I totally forgot about that.

Thanks guys, where would I be if you weren't there. :tongue: