When do the location of dragon lairs start to appear on the map? I need a few dragon shouts activated but I see none in the map. Is it after the quest Blade in the Dark?

Btw, I've just killed the dragon Sahloknir and seem to have absorbed its soul, but no dragon soul appear in the magic inventory. I've been to Solstheim and met Miraak then went back to Skyrim to level up, ever since then no dragon souls appear on my inventory. What do you think is the matter here? Thanks!

dragon lairs and shouts are enabled by start you can get the shout if you want before there are dragons in skyrim but you wont be able to use them without unlocking them with dragon souls. dragons start appearing in skyrim after the quest dragon rising ( after first dragon you kill in whiterun ). dragon lairs never appear on map by default you will have to first find them.

There's a couple of lairs that get marked on the map after overhearing rumors about them via passing guards, but I'm pretty certain that the majority of them behave just like any other location and must be discovered before appearing on the map.

Miraak steals dragon souls as you're about to absorb them, even on the mainland...if you don't see or hear him doing it then it's likely a bug of some sort as he usually announces himself.

What?!? Miraak steals dragon souls in the Mainland? Then what hope do I have of even getting a dragon soul before I defeat him?

Wait a minute, after I killed Sahloknir, there was this white light looking portal with some loud creepy voice saying something , I thought it was the dead dragon talking... Could that be Miraak announcing himself like you said? Is this why I got no dragon soul after that? Will he get ALL the souls of the dragons I will kill henceforward? Ugh!

Yes that creepy portal dude was Miraak stealing the soul of the dragon you killed. He only does that once in awhile though so you will be able to get most of them. He 'harvests' a small number of them out from under you starting after you meet him and ending after you kill him.

When/if you defeat Miraak, you'll get the souls that he stole back.

So killing dragons and collecting souls is pretty useful beyond just activating Shouts, but not by much. You really want to visit the graybeards and ask if they sense any more words in Skyrim. They'll mark your map with a location that includes wall with a shout. Once you have both the shout and the soul, you're in business! Gathering words without dragon souls with which to activate them isn't very good and storing lots of dragon souls without shouts to activate is equally futile.

Looks like you've got your work cut out for you in Solstheim! Good luck, that's a tough place.

That's him and one thing you can do is save right before fighting a dragon, that way if he steals the soul you can reload and try again. In my game he stole most of the souls (like 9 out of 10 souls from slain dragons) and the first time I did the Dragonborn MQ, I wasn't prepared with the 3 souls required to complete the quest line so I had a hard time progressing.

Most need to be discovered, but talking to the Greybeards may offer a location or two.

The fastest way to get dragon souls is to Fast Travel. This "speeds up" the game clock, making "randomized" attacks more frequent, especially near Morthal, Dawnstar, and Riverwood. Carriage rides won't do, even though it uses the same system.