First off, how accurate is the uesp for lore? The skaal are more tribal, but they also know of the existence of dragons and such right? I realize they are isolated but how close are they to the other nords?

For the most part UESP is pretty good with lore. But here, in my opinion, is the best place to go for lore: http://www.imperial-library.info/

Thanks. Its also tough to see if a nordic warrior would favor an axe or a sword. The descriptions for each game state that they are formidable warriors, but after playing skyrim (Ysgramor) they tend to favor axes. Unless there are nord heroes that favored swords? Also, its odd that they start with +5 to light armor but "nord armor" (Ancient Nord Armor, Nordic Carved, Steel Nordic Gauntlets) are all heavy.

UESP is fairly good, though generally avoid lore articles by themselves. As those are at times the interpretation of the writer and a summary of facts. So the best locations for lore are down the bottom of those pages, in sources. As they are often directly from in-game.

Skaal seem to be an ancient offshoot of Nords. So their culture and somewhat isolation caused differences between mainland Nords, such as religion and customs. Dragons once had (do have) a presence in Solstheim, so they do know about dragons.

Thanks. Would you say nords are more axe or sword users?

The dark ages and medieval Scandinavians that the nords are based on used axes far more than swords. Locally produced swords were far too brittle for any kind of fighting, and tended to be either ceremonial or made all fancy given as gifts of prestige to earn friendship.

Everything melee.

Magic included for Ancient Nords.

No decent blacksmiths back then?

Including large sticks or the limb of an enemy.

To my knowledge, the problem was that you can't just heat the metal to make a good battle sword. A sword blade was too long and thin and would snap off if it hit anything. Eventually southern European metal folding techniques and the Persian tendency to reinforce the sword with bonemeal found their way to Scandinavia, but swords were still prestige items only really used by high nobles. All the vikings that took part in raids would have been using the equivalent of a Skyrim waraxe, and maybe a very short sword that was more akin to a large dagger was used for stabbing.

In all previous games the Nords were heavy armor specialists.

Back in Morrowind Nords were heavy, Orcs were medium and Imperials were light / medium. I've always preferred it this way and still model my characters to suit.

When I played Skyrim I was shocked at the Nord stats with light armor. When I made a Nord character I went with heavy armor and 2-handed and I'm glad I did as it works better. Plus the Nord heavy armors look better IMO.

As for Nords and Scandinavia, sure the later Nords look very Norse but there is also a lot of Germanic influences plus on the ancient Nords there is a lot of Proto-Indo-European influences such as their burial mounds. The ancient Nord's knowledge of forging steel stronger I think is parelelled more with Scythians (or was it Samatians? - tying in with the Indo-European links) who used snow and fire (hot & cold) in their forging process to make the metal stronger.

Wouldn't increasing the sword's width solve the problem? And maybe decrease the length a bit, but it doesn't seem logical or necessary to just abandon it altogether and resort to shortswords.

And what about Japan's samurai? Their use of katanas surely wasn't just a myth.

My favorite weapon!

Wasn't Japanese sword making quite advanced? The Katana took quite awhile to make. Was more a work of art.

I think that the Japanese technique was not so much as in the way they produced the metal but more to do with the way they folded it. They started with a small block and kept hammering it. The Scythians (or was it Samatians? I can't remember) produced the hardest steel by the mix of metal and using ice / snow to cool the metal while forging it.