First of all, I looked around the forum a bit but could not find a similar topic - if this has been discussed before please lock/delete the topic.

I was playing Morrowind today when I came across something I had not noticed before. When you go to the Dissident Priests monastery, they give you two texts. One of the is entitled "The Lost Prophecy". The first four lines read:

From seventh sign to eleventh generation,
Neither Hound not Guar, nor Seed nor Harrow,
But Dragon-born and far-star-marked
Outlander Incarnate beneath Red Mountain

Could this be just the mad ramblings of a deranged ashlander, a poor interpretation of the original text, or ...? Anyhow, I was quite surprised to see that, I totaly disregarded it in all my previous Morrowind play-throughs as "dragon born" ment nothing to me at the time, so I assumed it was just a poetic metaphor. Is there any more concrete lore on what Dragon-born actually means and how the Nerevarine could possibly have been one?

Dragon-born in this case is being used symbollically. The symbol of the Septim Empire is a dragon, and thus, to be Dragon-born in the symbolism of the Nerevarine Prophesies is to be born an outlander, in the lands under Imperial domain.

Well, Dragonborn are just people descended from heroes granted the powers to fight dragons, aren't they? Maybe Bethesda came up with that idea much earlier than we think.


Could be, but it's quite a "coincidence" isn't it?

Actually, as far as I know, "Dragonborn" is a person desacending from "the union of the blood of Akatosh and Alessia". In that context it is not impossible for the Nerevarine to have been one (could have been a descendant of a bastard of the royal family or whatever...). We can only speculate on this of course, but it definately brings forth interesting questions. The best interpretation in my opinion is still what DarthRavanger said, but still.