I am referring to this chant:

At the beginning of the worlds were five.
Fire. Water. Earth. Air. And Light.
Darkness turned into day, the void took form.
Hidden away, by virtue of its own self-awareness, was the sixth.
Containing within it the five which birthed it, Flesh.

Meat, with the desire to consume like Fire.
Blood, liquid nutrient, that ocean which casts pearls of life upon the shores of existance.
Bone, branch and stone of the body, giving shape and structure.
Breath, child of air, bestowing movement; the stirring of spirit.
And last, the Light of flesh, the illumination of soul--perception, thought, memory, imagination.

This is the chant you hear when you, in Shivering Isles, . I am very intrigued by this chant. Who wrote it? Why? What is its purpose? Or is it all simply just an over-exaggerated chant? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks to everyone in advance.

I'm sure a search will give you your answer.

Were the Ayleids the only ones to consider light a basic element? They used light instead of fire on the four elements wheel, interestingly this chant consider all five of them: light AND fire.

Some person at Bethesda. Probably none of the more prolific authors. If you're asking for an in-game author, that's obviously unknown.


They needed something cool-sounding to go with the quest.

I wish they had used slightly different words so we could say it was the Atronach Creation Myth or something wonky like that.

I disagree, the ambiguity of the chant makes it very easy to use weasel lore to fill in the blanks, such as for a mod I'm currently writing for.

I guess it's written by that flesh-obsessed female dunmer after all the chant (what's that again? ) is used for the ritual of creating the Gatekeeper..

The fact that the first words are "At the beginning..." implies that this was written long long ago, at least that's what it sounds like to me. I dunno everyone, I was curious because I wanted to use that chant as a theme for a mod I'm helping design and wanted to get more information before I start filling the thing up with Xeno-lore.

What I don't understand is how "flesh" is an element when it is composed of five elements. Then again, the person who spoke this wasn't playing with a full deck.

Even Sheogorath was surprised to learn that.

The Greeks had the idea that Man was created from the 4 elements, too, if I remember right (they may have counted Aether, too. It's been a while since i read about them.)

It's basically the idea of Man being made of all the elements, an idea echoed in mythology. Do remember that you're talking about a game where myths are real. Because stating that Man is carbon based in a game of magic is boring.

Nevermind that the n elements thing has been done to death already and is about as boring.

From a certain perspective, especially in the case where myths were used to explain something pre-existing, a pre-existing science and a mortal myth can indeed co-exist. However, the former is overshadowed because it cannot be explained by the mortals.

That only works in the real world, where myths 'are lies breathed through silver,' rather than a precedent and a pattern that controls matter, has no limiting factors of any sort and exists independent of mortal input.

Yet the existence of mortal bodies preceded mortal myths. And the Daedra, who are outside the influence of mortal myth, possess bodies not unlike those of mortals, with a few fundamental differences. Heck, the Golden Saints have a vulnerability to poison.

why?....

Iirc, the greeks believe in the Four Humors - Water, Blood, Yellow Bile, and Black Bile. Could be wrong.

I believe that belief came about somewhat later. I think it existed in Europe around the time of Shakespeare.

WARNING SPOILERS

I can't believe nobody gave the answer yet, it's the dunmer lady that created the gatekeeper, http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Shivering:Relmyna_Verenim, the chant as you ask is interesting in that it shows what happens when all elements combine, flesh is created, however she is wrong unless someone can prove otherwise about the beginning part, you see in Daggerfall there were flesh atronachs, i have studied and asked the lore-buffs how it is possible when, supposedly Relmyna created the flesh atronachs, the only answer is she didn't, I am unsure of the origin of the original flesh atronach, but i haven't found anything which disapproves the theory that she didn't.

The elements she describes are a reference to the most common elements suggested in the game.

More to the point i think that the chant itself is added coolness on the dev's part, however i see no reason why you can't exploit this to make your own mod. Good luck with the mod :goodjob:

PS, the later talk on meat and blood etc. is talking about what role each element takes in the making of 'flesh' Tell me if i missed something.

Ah, well my bad

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_elements#Classical_elements_in_Greece

the humors were pre-dark ages thinking; it's just that during the dark ages, Europe had NO medical strides what so ever and the 'doctors' commonly referred to the humors from their gross misunderstanding of the human body and medicine in general. It wasn't until the Renaissance that things began to change, and Europe had some great thinking power going. The Arabs, on the other hand, were pretty much kicking butt in every scholarly field during the Dark Ages.

Ah, I thought you meant flesh. I know in the Middle Ages those four elements were the foundation of Alchemy, and were thought to make up everything.

No, he's right -- the Four Humors made up all PERSONALITIES, and the excess of any of them led to personality disorders. Also blood was life. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humorism.

Didn't say he was incorrect. I posted that because I thought he was saying mine was.

edit: crap, my link even links to the Humorism article, so that would be super stupid.

:wacko: