So I am curious about these creatures. Can anyone explain them to me?

Hagravens are witches, or hags, who have turned themselves into half-human half-raven monsters. They are so powerful because they are perversions of nature - they shouldn't really exist. Spriggans are simply natural creatues that wander about the forests of Tamriel - theres a Nord myth saying that when the Gods breathed life into the world, the trees that absorbed the life became spriggans, and i've heard suggestions to them being similar to Daedra but instead Aedric minions to Kynareth.

lesser aedra. Maybe. They are related to Kyne that's undisputable.

Its revealed in Oblivion that Kyne did indeed create them but the Solsthiem Spriggans are different as they live longer and can resurrect themselves three times.

It seems Hagravens and Forsworn don't like Spriggans very much. Their lairs often have mutilated pieces of Spriggans (heads on posts and what looks like taproot in nets), and it's said in The Blessings of Nature that Hagravens sacrifice Spriggans.

Miránhaim and Cwmreith as related by the Hag sisters of Cut Vein Creek to Horalogius Querquetulanus

"...Then in those grim days Southron, Cwmreith-Traitor
sat on Afallwych's lap farting whilst Grandfather Lygcaef
lay bloody under Red Cairn in the far-off scorched east.

So while érseinn taught our fathers how to till toll-roads
with blades, Miránhaim taught our oak-knower mothers
the crow-customs that laugh at Traitor-Wife's laws

Raging with all her bluster at her words flaunted, Cwm
breathed life into twigs-anon-twig-daughters and sent
them to arrest Miránhaim's hags from doing their rites

So Miránhaim, more clever than her station seems
matched customs with members, giving her witches
aspect of carrion-be-fowlers armed with wicked talons.

'Ere the twig-daughters were without power to halt
our old oak-knower mothers, who with a beat o' wing
could climb air and perch on their heads."

Hagravens don't like anything. They also made Nettlebane to sacrifice Spriggans with. I never understood why Spriggans always attack though. Especially when I'm carrying a bundle of Hagraven heads and have Animal Allegiance activate. I'm not hurtin anything? One second you're takin a [censored] on a tree and the next second, the tree is strangling you.

Best. Line. Ever.

Of all time.

Hagravens appear to be witches who have sacrificed their physical form for the promise of great power.

I suspect they have some relation to the daedric princes Namira and/or Hircine.
Why? well Namira for one appreciates the repulsive, and often she represents a darker side of nature.
While Hircine on the other hand is a guardian of manbeasts, whom might just include womanbeasts as among his flock.


Spriggans appear to be forest guardians whom protect particular areas from those who could do it harm.

They look to be of relation to the Aedra Kynareth, as the Oblivion, Knights of the Nine plug-in showed.
Also I believe I remember some spriggans serving the daedric prince Meridia in one of the older TES games.
Whether this stays true in current canon, I'm unsure. I myself haven't seen any particular lore that disproves it.

Isn't there a quest where a daughter gets you to kill her mother to prevent her from turning herself into a hagraven? I haven't found the quest but heard something about it. Does it give any more info about how it works?

Hagravens to me is a form of lichdom, more related to nature than necromancy.

Only that the ritual requires a human sacrifice.
That the sacrifice must participate of his own free will, though he does not have to be told the truth.
In Skyrim the hagraven-to-be lies and calls it an 'experiment', so I dont think they tell people they are going to kill them.

I did that quest. I came so close to killing the hagdaughter at first because when you enter, she's fighting another hag. Also, through the whole quest I was positive she wass going to betray me. Imagine my surprise when she didnt. I don't know why anyone would fall for it though. And it doesnt explain why they sacrifce so many goats, skeevers and Spriggans.

Plus the connection between the Glenmoril Witch Coven (who appear to be hagravens) and lycanthropy.

*EDIT* This might also explain a lot concerning the Reachmen's "Old Gods." They dress themselves in various animal hides and hagravens appear to have some connection to Hircine. Maybe they worship Hircine, though I couldn't tell you if they do it directly or indirectly.

The Glenmoril Witches worship Hircine directly I think, but I can't speak for all Hagravens.

Oops, I messed up my pronoun-antecedent arrangement. The last "they" should refer to the Reachmen.

Hmm, nothing I didn't already know, but I guess that is okay.

I really hope the Hagravens are expanded upon, and even more interesting why the Glenmoril Witches became Hagravens. They were humans or mer just 200 years earlier.

PET SUBJECT!

I think most of the relationship between Spriggans and Hagravens has been handled here. Hagraven's are a perversion of nature, wrought by magicks older than anything you will find in a Synod textbook. A witch spliced with a bird.

The magicks the Hagravens themselves practice are of more interest. Do not forget that the various Witches Coverns, although often Daedra-worshippers, also include the last Church of Lorkhan left in human lands. Their magic is earthy and older than time because they dance to the beat of the first drum, who is the world, whose heart was torn out and flung to the east. Bar by bar, House Dagoth worked to reproduce the same song, under Red Mountain.

Which actually throws interesting light on the relationship between Spriggans and Hagravens. Are the hags not mantling Kyne, bride of Shor, in taking on birdshape? If Spriggans are the handmaidens of Kyne also, then is there war a big match of he was mine first?

Well you could say that lycanthropes are Kyne's creation too, because it's unnaturally nature related. But they're not.

Oh, nice! Good stuff.

I missed the Lorkhan worshipers - can you be more specific?

I think you're spot-on with the Kyne business, and the age of it all. This goes back to a time before pretty little Cyrodiilic Kynareth, or even Kyne as a nice, polite goddess of nature. Why would Nords think the goddess of the wind and nature was a nice lady? They don't. She was Shor's battle-wife. And the hagravens go back to something even older than that.

In other notes, what happened to bring the Glenmoril coven all the way from the Iliac to Skyrim, and turn them into hagravens?

I dug up on this since taking up my Reachwoman character for RPs. If you take the Sithis = Lorkhan route you have the dark brotherhood, I guess. The Third Pocket Guide, in one of its countless morsels, tells us that the Witch-Queen of Whiterun, Jsashe calls herself a Priestess of Lorkhan. Before this, Witches normally seemed to be crude Daedra worshippers, as far as I know.

And then in Skyrim we get Briarhearts. If that is not mantling, then I don't know what is. Skyrim actually did give us a fair bit of lore to play with, though not all of it is immediately obvious, in the form of new religious texts, or so on. But the rituals of the Forsworn and the Hagravens point towards a whole new area of magic, we'd be doing a disservice by merely seeing as daedric-meddling. The fact we are given so little to go on is actually kind of fun, in a different way to Morrowind's excess. Let's not think about Oblivion.

That sounds lovely.


Quite. In fact, I'm not convinced by all the animal skulls and spriggan remains that they actually are against Kyne. She might just be another harsh nature mother who expects people kill and be killed by her minions.


In Daggerfall, they were the one coven to appear in multiple countries within towns. Then they appeared in Bloodmoon; in the form of a raven. The vampires of Cyrodiil think there's a 'Glenmoril Wyrd' clan of vampires operating in High Rock cities. And now they've appeared again. They seem massive as witch covens go. What do ravens mean to bretons and reachmen? Other than Dwynnen that is. But then they must have had their reasons for choosing it as a heraldic symbol. Funny how reachmen and the Glenmoril coven share the ability to turn into hagravens, though. I assumed that the latter were standard bretons. Perhaps the ancient bretons and reachmen were more alike and the witches have held on to those traditions.

This is what I've guessed at. The Direnni, and then later the Cyrodiils, tried to push certain Breton cultures to the fringe. The Hags and Hagraven's relationship to the madmen of the Reach isn't directly matriarchal though, I wouldn't say. I think they are wise-women, a cult respected, but outside normal Reach society. All of this is conjecture, of course, but that is the vibe the Legend of the Red Eagle gives me. I just want to know who the Reach's Old Gods are.

I think the Hagravens are a corruption of Kynareth. Spriggans seem to be associated with both Kyne and Kynareth, and killing them as sacrifice probably serves to work against the god.

Spriggans are not nice, either. They don't care if your burning down the forest of a gentle Kynareth worshiper. You come near them, they kill you.

I always just thought of them both very powerful, but Spriggins are more creatures of the forest, Hagravens are just mean ugly bird ladies that shoot very powerful fireballs at you. I haven't encounter either but I've heard a lot.