I finished the first Inheritance book, Eragon. I noticed a couple of (probably meaningless) similar things including:

- A character called Hrothgar = High Horothgar

- A hammer called 'Volund' = the hammer, Volendrung

-Hrothgar happens to own Volund and he has a grey/white beard.

So I thought: Hrothgar/Horothgar owns Volund/Volendrung the hammer and he is a greybeard.

I just thought I'd point that out because I'm just curious as to if it actually means something, or these similarities are just a coincidence.

More than likely Christopher Paolini took inspiration from TES when creating those two fantasy elements.

Most likely just a coincidence

This, that kind of thing happens all the time.

Volund isn't really that similar to Volendrung(Except for the 'Vol'), and as far as I know, Volendrung has no connection to the Greybeards.

Only speculation I see is that both stories contain the name Hrothgar, but the relativity in which they are used is so far apart, I can't see it possibly being an Easter Egg of some sort.

Now, maybe if the name of one of the Greybeards(or any other Old, White-Haired Nord) was Hrothgar, and he wielded a Warhammer, you'd be onto something.

Diablo II: Lord of Destruction has a barbarian mercenary named Hrothgar, and it was released in June 2001. It's just a name.